ifornia 
>nal 

ity 


EDNA  KENTON 


r 


.  OF  CALIF.  LIBRARY,  LOS  AflGELES 


CLEM 


CLEM 

BY  EDNA  KENTON 

AUTHOR    OF    "WHAT    MANNER    OF    MAN" 


THE    CENTURY    CO. 
N  EW  YORK  ...    1907 


Copyright,  1907,  by 
THE  CENTURY  Co. 


Published,  A  ugust,  7907 


THE   DE  VINNE   PRE88 


TO 

MY    MOTHER 


21306G2 


CLEM 


CLEM 


THE  little  group  sitting  on  a  small,  re 
tired  veranda  bent  forward  interest 
edly  as  the  sudden  clatter  of  heavy,  plated 
harness  and  the  click  of  horses'  hoofs  broke 
out  on  the  driveway  just  below.  As  the 
hotel  groom  released  the  horses'  heads  at 
an  imperious  order  from  the  trap's  single 
occupant,  a  blonde  and  beautiful  young 
woman,  and  the  bright  red  equipage  leaped 
forward  with  renewed  din,  the  specially 
interested  onlookers  sank  back  into  their 
chairs  with  amicable  smiles  as  signs  of 
recognized  truce  before  the  interrupted 
discussion  of  this  same  young  woman 
broke  out  again. 

"Just  for  instance!"  remarked  Farda 
Grantham  disdainfully,  with  a  gesture  to 
ward  the  crowded  beach  driveway  down 

[3] 


CLEM 

which  the  girl  was  guiding,  with  almost 
ostentatious  skill,  her  beautiful  horses. 

Mrs.  Gresham,  leaning  back  in  her  low 
chair,  laughed  delightedly.  "Well,  what 
ever  she  is  or  is  n't,  the  girl  can  drive  and 
ride,"  she  asserted  warmly.  "Eaton,  did 
you  see  her  tame  that  ramping  thing  the 
other  morning?" 

Her  husband  nodded  assent,  and  Mrs. 
Gresham  swept  on :  "She  was  riding  that 
morning,  and  she  had  a  black  devil  of  a 
horse — his  eyes  and  his  ears  and  his  nose 
were  like  flames.  It  was  in  view  of  the 
entire  hotel  frontage,  right  out  yonder,  and 
it  was  terrifying  and  delightful  and  unut 
terably  loud,  of  course.  But  it  was  a  splen 
did  thing  to  see.  Without  doubt  she  's 
Wild  West,  as  they  all  say — she  learned 
some  of  those  display  tricks  of  hers  no 
where  but  from  the  trickiest  of  cowboys 
— but  truly  I  felt  like  cheering  her  as 
she  fought  and  won  that  battle;  she  might 
have  been  killed  easily.  The  picture  of 
her!— her  dead  black  habit  and  her  dead 
black  horse,  and  that  gold-yellow  hair  of 


CLEM 

hers  beneath  that  rigidly  correct  Derby, 
and  her  black  gauntleted  whip-hand — " 

"Look!"  interrupted  Miss  Grantham. 
She  pointed  down  the  beach  drive,  and 
their  eyes  followed  her  accusing  finger. 
Before  the  club-house,  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
below,  the  red  trap  halted,  and  on  its  high 
seat  its  white-clad,'  golden-haired  occupant 
sat,  serenely  waiting.  As  a  lithe,  athletic 
young  fellow  ran  down  the  steps  of  the 
club-house  and  swung  up  into  the  vacant 
seat  beside  the  girl,  the  watching  group  sat 
back  again,  this  time  without  smiles  on  the 
women's  part.  Eaton  Gresham  exchanged 
grins  with  his  smoking  companion  oppo 
site,  and  then  glanced  for  sympathy  at  the 
third  man  of  the  group.  But  Drake  Lori- 
mer  neither  looked  back  nor  smiled. 
Whereupon  Gresham  gave  him  a  malicious 
dig  in  the  side. 

"Wake  up,  Drake,  old  man!"  he  urged. 
"That  was  Reggie !" 

"Eaton,  don't  be  a  fool!"  implored  his 
wife.  "Drake  is  worried,  as  he  has  a  right 
to  be,  of  course." 


CLEM 

"Oh,  hardly  worried,"  Lorimer  re 
sponded  pleasantly,  smiling  slightly  now  at 
Gresham. 

"But  if  it  were  just  a  bit  more  open,  eh  ?" 
suggested  the  affable  Mrs.  Gresham. 
"He  's  with  her  all  the  time,  Drake,  and  of 
late  it 's  been  after  this  fashion — ever  since 
you  and  Jack  Lowe  came  down." 

Lorimer  tossed  a  charred  cigarette  over 
the  railing.  "We  '11  all  be  rusticating  at 
The  Pines  in  another  fortnight,"  he  re 
marked.  "There  '11  be  nothing  to  all  this, 
once  out  of  sight  and  sound." 

"Nothing  to  it !"  cried  Farda  Grantham. 
"It  's  high  time  you  were  looking  into  it 
then,  for  your  own  enlightenment  as  well 
as  Reggie's  good.  As  Dell  says,  he  's  with 
her  all  the  time;  it  's  appalling.  Not  that 
he  's  unlike  a  great  lot  of  the  men  here,  in 
that  respect ;  Jack,  for  instance,  when  Reg 
gie  gives  him  a  chance;  but  he  's  such  a 
nice  boy,  and  such  a  boy — only  twenty! 
And  she  's— how  old  should  you  say,  Dell? 
— twenty-six — seven — eight  ?" 


CLEM 

"I  don't  incriminate  myself  that  way," 
retorted  Dell  Gresham.  "I  've  a  painfully 
constructed  reputation  for  good  nature. 
But  all  of  twenty-six,  Farda.  She  's  ma 
ture." 

"She  's  worse  than  mature,"  said  Farda 
coldly.  "She  's  experienced — " 

Drake  Lorimer,  listening  intently  to  all 
the  quick  give  and  take  of  speech,  lost  the 
rest  of  the  girl's  words  through  a  whis 
pered  question  of  Mrs.  Gresham's. 

"Does  Aunt  Frances  seem  to  you  to  be 
aware  of  the  state  of  things  at  all?"  she 
asked  eagerly.  "No,  I  have  n't  dared  say 
anything  definite  to  her,  since  the  first  time 
I  mentioned  it.  For  she  went  at  Reggie 
with  that  grande  dame  air  of  hers,  you 
know;  and  Reggie  flared  up  inwardly, 
though  he  was  as  dear  to  her  as  he  always 
is,  and  she  missed  sight  of  his  hidden  re 
sentment.  But  take  my  word  for  it,  Drake, 
the  little  boy  is  badly  caught.  So  badly 
that  I  verily  believe  it  all  depends  on  the 
girl,  and  I  've  wondered  if  her  sense  of 

[73 


CLEM 

humor  is  subtle  enough  to  save  the  day. 
She  's  half  a  century  older  than  Reggie, 
you  know." 

She  nodded  her  head  sapiently,  and 
edged  her  chair  nearer  Lorimer's.  She  was 
a  rather  young  woman,  modern  to  a  de 
gree.  Naturally  fair  of  skin,  she  wore  a 
perpetual  coat  of  tan  to  which  she  assidu 
ously  added  at  all  seasons  of  the  year  in 
one  place  or  another.  Her  eyes  were  her 
greatest  attraction ;  they  were  placed  pecu 
liarly  far  apart.  Of  perfect  roundness, 
they  seemed  like  holes  burnt  in  her  impu 
dent  little  face,  all  the  more  like  holes 
because  they  were  mostly  deep  black  pupil, 
set  about  with  long,  dark  lashes,  thick,  yet 
with  each  and  every  lash  distinct.  The  ef 
fect  of  Dell  Gresham's  lashes  was  that 
which  one  gets  in  a  photograph  cheap  and 
too  much  retouched — they  were  so  strongly 
accentuated  in  a  face  otherwise  insignifi 
cant.  For  her  nose  was  badly  modeled, 
and  her  mouth  was  crooked,  and  her  teeth 
none  of  the  straightest.  But,  given  those 
eyes  and  lashes,  unbeautiful  as  they  were, 


CLEM 

her  face  was  raised  instantly  from  medioc 
rity  to  a  plane  intensely  magnetic. 

Drake  Lorimer  looked  at  her  thought 
fully,  with  his  deep-set  eyes  holding 
scarcely  a  gleam  in  their  lazy  depths. 

"It  was  your  letter,  and  that  alone,  which 
brought  me  down  here,  Dell,"  he  said  at 
last,  almost  impatiently.  "I  came  because 
you  forejudged  me  a  coward  if  I  did 
not  come.  But  I  'm  not  believing  it  's  a 
matter  one  hundredth  as  serious  as  all 
you  women  are  trying  to  make  out.  Boys 
have  a  dozen  desperate  cases — " 

"Reggie  Wines  has  never  had  one 
yet,"  Mrs.  Gresham  interrupted  shrewdly. 
"That  's  what  makes  so  much  of  it  depend 
on  the  girl.  A  first  love  affair  is  always 
serious,  especially  a  boy's  affair.  A 
girl  usually  is  safely  enough  in  love  with 
Love  to  make  the  man  a  minor  matter,  but 
a  boy  is  in  love  with  Woman,  and  it  de 
pends  on  the  woman — oh,  infinitely!" 
ended  Dell,  characteristically  vague,  and 
yet  appallingly  definite. 

"In  any  event,  Dell,"  said  Lorimer,  "the 

[9] 


CLEM 

boy  is  not  eligible.  He  is  too  much  her 
junior;  he  has  not  great  wealth — " 

Mrs.  Gresham  sniffed  at  the  feeble  rea 
soning.  "At  least  once  in  her  life  every 
woman  loves  a  boy\"  she  admitted.  "At 
least  once !  Then  there  's  enough  to  Reggie 
in  the  way  of  family  to  counterbalance  any 
lack  of  stupendous  wealth  on  his  side. 
She  's  got  enough  of  that  for  ten  genera 
tions,  but  when  it  comes  to  family — can 
she  go  back  one?" 

"What  family  has  she?  Father — 
mother?" 

"No  mother,  thank  heaven — you  can 
imagine  what  she  would  be  like.  A  father, 
not  unpresentable  until  he  begins  to  talk, 
and  not  then  unless  one  is  mercilessly  con 
ventional.  But  he  keeps  discreetly  in  the 
background ;  plays  poker  most  of  the  time. 
The  men  say  that  he  is  at  his  best  at  cards, 
that  he  is  almost  a  gentleman  then,  espe 
cially  when  he  is  losing,  and  that  he  is  at 
least  a  full-blooded  man.  He  worships  this 
girl,  it  's  easy  to  see.  At  the  charity  fete 
they  gave  down  here  last  week,  he  bought 


CLEM 

her  way  in  with  a  thousand-dollar  check — 
oh,  it  was  this  way:  I  caught  a  frightful 
rose  cold,  and  was  simply  out  of  it,  and  he 
came  over  to  say  he  'd  heard  'the  lady  who 
was  to  read  palms  had  tuckered  out/  and 
that  his  daughter,  being  a  stranger,  had  n't 
been  noticed  with  a  booth  or  a  stall,  but 
that  she  could  read  hands  as  well  as  any 
lady  there,  and  offered  her  services  and  the 
check.  There  was  a  significant  sequence 
to  his  phrases  which  impressed  the  treas 
urer,  and  they  took  both.  She  did  make 
something  of  a  sensation,  for  her  make-up 
was  gorgeous.  She  wore  a  bushel  of  uncut 
turquoises  and  cloth-of-gold  and  that  sort 
of  thing.  But  with  all  that  splendor,  and 
the  weight  of  jewels  that  a  less  vigorous 
young  animal  would  have  staggered  under, 
she  's  too  evidently  only  'Pick-me-up !' ' 

'You  have  a  vivid  tongue,  Dell,"  Lori- 
mer  protested  faintly.  "Has  she  no 
friends  here  of  any  sort?" 

"Since  the  fete,  yes;  most  of  the  men, 
but  no  women,  Drake.  And  it 's  been  since 
then  that  Reggie  Wines 'has  taken  to  dog- 


CLEM 

ging  her  steps.  Oh,  yes,  I  've  talked  to  her 
some — we  've  met  on  the  verandas — and 
she  's  a  good-natured,  happy-go-lucky 
thing.  But  oh,  Drake !" 

"And  Mrs.  Wines  is  n't  aware  of  the — 
what  you  term  'seriousness'  of  the  affair?" 

"Not  from  me !"  said  her  niece  promptly. 
"I  gave  her  fair  warning  at  first,  and  she 
took  high-class  action,  and  I  daresay  she 
thinks  the  incident  closed." 

Lorimer  moved  impatiently.  "Really," 
he  said,  "I  don't  see  what  there  is  to  do. 
Anything,  that  is,  which  won't  tend  to 
make  serious  what  may  be  merely  fleeting." 

He  paused;  then  added  slowly:  "I  met 
the  girl  myself,  last  week.  You  remember 
I  ran  down  for  the  fete  casually — she  read 
my  hand,  gave  me  a  remarkably  good  read 
ing;  showed  herself,  in  a  blunt,  unsubtle 
fashion,  a  good  deal  of  a  physiognomist. 
She  managed  to  get  a  lot  of  intangible 
atmosphere  into  that  curtained  recess.  I 
remember  now,  she  knew  me  immediately 
— there  's  something  about  the  girl  that  is 
intensely  magnetic — attractive — " 


CLEM 

He  broke  off,  his  attention  distracted  by 
an  irritated  wave  of  his  neighbor's  hand, 
not  Gresham's,  but  that  of  Gresham's  vis-a 
vis,  the  third  man  of  the  group.  Its 
owner's  voice  followed  swiftly,  and  ar 
rested  the  attention  of  every  one.  John 
Lowe  was  a  noticeably  ugly  man  of  some 
thirty-two  or  -three  years,  sandy-haired  and 
dully  florid.  His  nose  was  long,  and  sloped 
at  a  peculiar  angle  from  his  sloping  fore 
head.  His  jaw  was  squarely  built  and 
massive,  and  his  mouth  was  large.  His 
lips  met  each  other  at  right  angles  rather 
than  with  gentle  curves.  His  ugliness  was 
so  compelling  a  thing  as  to  make  of  him  a 
striking  man.  He  was  a  successful  painter, 
and  bore  the  appearance  of  a  thrifty  busi 
ness  man.  Even  his  hand  was  not  of  the 
artist's  type,  though  the  sight  of  those  thick 
ringers  holding  masterfully  the  brush  could 
never  be  forgotten. 

"You  plunge  into  your  subject  like  a 
blind  diver,  my  dear  Farda,"  he  said 
coolly.  "Denys  raves  over  her ;  curses  fate 
that  she  was  n't  born  a  child  of  the  Quar- 


CLEM 

tier.  That  portrait  he  did  of  her — the  one 
he  made  his  big  hit  on — is  an  amazing 
thing.  You  must  have  seen  it  yourself,  if 
you  took  in  the  Salon  last  year.  It  had  a 
wall  to  itself,  great  big  canvas,  blonde  girl 
with  blue  jewels  of  eyes,  blue  background 
— all  of  it  was  daringly,  glaucously 
blue-" 

"Oh,  I  saw  it,  of  course,"  said  Miss 
Grantham  impatiently.  "And  I  read  in  it 
just  what  you  are  eliminating — inherent 
coarseness,  mental,  physical,  and  probably 
moral.  It  was  loud,  overbearing,  shriek- 
ingly  insistent.  The  very  dress — the  way 
she  wore  it — the  handling  of  that  left 
shoulder — do  you  remember  it?  Yes, 
Denys  is  a  psychologist,  but  we  differ  vi 
tally  in  interpreting  him." 

Lowe  sank  more  deeply  into  his  comfort 
able  chair,  and  became  leisurely  reminis 
cent. 

"I  met  her  almost  two  years  ago,  while 
that  portrait  was  being  done.  Met  her  for 
the  first  time  one  morning  in  Denys'  place. 
She  was  giving  him  a  sitting,  and  I  stum- 


CLEM 

bled  in,  and  the  two  of  them  together  let 
me  in  on  it.  She  was  a  stunning  sight  that 
day— I  tell  you,  Farda,  you  Ve  read  him 
wrong;  because  Denys  and  I  talked  her 
over  later,  deliberately,  with  the  appalling 
frankness  which  painters  and  physicians 
dare  to  use — it  's  not  inherent  coarseness 
he  's  put  there — I  should  n't  grant  that 
at  all." 

"I  saw  her  one  day,  down  yonder  on  the 
bathing  beach,"  Farda  interrupted  with 
provocative  calm.  "Just  two  or  three 
weeks  ago.  She  happened  to  wear  black 
and  red  this  time,  instead  of  blue.  You 
mentioned  daringly  blue.  This  was  auda 
cious  rouge-et-noir.  I  got  down  there — 
you  were  there,  too,  and  staring  generously 
— just  as  she  was  coming  up  from  the  surf. 
All  about  her  there  were  other  bathing- 
costumes  quite  as  conspicuous  in  cut  and 
color.  But  if  she  had  shrieked  she 
could  n't  have  announced  her  presence  more 
loudly  than  she  did  by  the  very  force  of 
her  personality.  It  literally  shouts;  she 
does  n't  have  to." 


CLEM 

Lowe  smiled  broadly  as  he  listened  to  the 
girl's  cold  recital. 

"Precisely!"  he  retorted,  with  a  crisp- 
ness  in  his  voice  that  went  well  with  the 
snap  in  his  gray-green  eyes.  "Because  she 
was  a  thing  apart  from  every  other  woman 
there.  Denys  was  right,  and  that  day  I 
saw  he  was  right.  She  looked  the  primitive 
Woman.  She  might  have  been  the  primeval 
Woman  walking  untrodden  sands,  pressing 
the  springing  earth  when  the  world  was 
young.  She  was  so  nobly  unashamed  and 
so  purely  human — ah  yes,  she  was!  The 
very  atoms  of  her  might  have  been  scooped 
up  from  virgin  earth,  from  sea-born  clay 
just  washed  to  shore;  and  a  Rodin  hand 
might  have  modeled  her !" 

Mrs.  Gresham  beat  softly  with  her  foot 
upon  the  floor.  She  put  her  two  elbows  on 
her  knees  and  dropped  her  chin  into  her 
hands,  and  her  eyes  sparkled  wickedly 
above  them.  Farda  turned  coldly  to  her. 

"Is  n't  it  strange,  Dell,"  she  observed 
disdainfully,  "how  men  stand  up  for  a  de 
classe  woman  if  she  's  pretty?  Every  one 


CLEM 

said,  all  over  Paris,  whether  they  knew  the 
girl  or  not,  and  it  was  mostly  not,  of 
course,  that  the  Denys  portrait  was  a  piti 
less  thing!" 

"Virginia  saw  it,  too,"  reminded  Lowe. 
"Was  it  pitiless,  Vee?" 

A  slender  girl  of  twenty,  sitting  a  little 
apart  from  the  others,  and  evidently  ab 
sorbed  in  a  book,  looked  quickly  up  at  the 
direct  question,  and  glanced  about  the 
group.  Then  she  looked  appealingly  at  her 
cousin. 

"I  did  n't  hear,  Drake,"  she  said  to  him. 

"Lowe  wants  your  opinion  of  that  blue 
lady  of  Denys'  which  you  liked  so  much  a 
year  or  so  ago,  when  you  saw  it,"  Lorimer 
answered  absently.  Stray  phrases  from 
Lowe's  late  rhapsody  were  beating  about  in 
his  brain. 

"Wake  up,  Vee,"  Miss  Grantham  be 
sought  her  plaintively.  "That  portrait  of 
Clem  Merrit— " 

"I  know,"  the  girl  said.  Her  eyes,  set 
wide  apart  and  intended  by  nature  for 
merely  ruminative  contemplation,  were 

C'7] 


CLEM 

drawn  together  in  the  pained  earnestness  of 
her  thought. 

"I  don't  like  to  think  of  that  portrait,  or 
that  girl,"  she  said  at  last  with  startling 
candor.  "They  are  both  of  them  too — 
happy.  As  if  no  sorrow  or  pain  could  ever 
come  near  her.  It  is  enough  to  make  any 
one — jealous  of  her!" 

She  broke  off  abruptly,  with  a  slow  flush 
creeping  over  her  face,  and  then  she  turned 
her  chair  about,  and  seemed  to  bury  herself 
in  her  book.  A  slight  pause  followed  which 
was  too  heavily  weighted  with  common 
understanding  to  be  endured  for  long. 

"I  still  insist — "  began  Miss  Grantham 
blandly.  Lowe  stopped  her. 

"You  '11  insist  one  way  or  another  with 
Death,  my  dear  girl;  and  I  should  n't  bet 
on  Death  as  a  sure  thing  at  all." 

Mrs.  Gresham  got  up  suddenly.  "I  can 
appreciate  Jack's  bleatings  about  primitive 
womanhood  and  all  that,"  she  remarked 
crisply;  "and  for  myself,  I  don't  mind  the 
girl,  the  little  I  've  seen  of  her ;  she  's  a  type 
not  without  interest.  But  when  you  take 

[18] 


CLEM 

her  out  of  primitive  environment,  and  put 
her — into  Aunt  Frances'  remote  circle,  for 
instance — hush,  here  's  Aunt  Frances  now. 
You  're  fairly  warned,  Drake/ and  I  wash 
my  hands  right  here  of  any  sort  of  re 
sponsibility  in  Reggie's  love  affairs.  The 
solution  or  the  catastrophe  is  entirely  up  to 
you.  I  'm  off.  Come,  Eaton." 

With  the  typically  unreasoning  obedience 
of  the  American  husband,  Gresham  rose 
lazily  to  his  feet,  and  followed  in  his  wife's 
rippling  wake.  Lowe  glanced  across  at 
Farda  and  raised  his  eyebrows  intelligently, 
and  at  an  answering  nod  from  her  they 
both  rose  and  went  away,  taking  Virginia 
with  them.  Mrs.  Gresham  cast  one  glance 
back  over  her  very  Frenchy  shoulder,  and, 
seeing  Lorimer  still  alone,  came  back  to 
him,  her  eyes  alight  with  mischief. 

"Do  help  Aunt  Frances  out !"  she  begged 
softly.  "Her  dearest,  most  secret  wish  is 
so  transparent !  All  's  lovely,  or  would  be, 
if  both  Virginia  and  Reggie  were  n't  in 
love  with  the  wrong  people.  However, 
you  've  meddled  successfully  in  Vee's  little 

C'9] 


CLEM 

affair;  it  's  time  for  you  to  take  up  Reg- 
gie's." 

"How  does  Virginia  seem  to  you,  Dell?" 
Lorimer  asked  quickly.  "She  had  n't  much 
to  say  to  me  one  way  or  another — of 
course,  I  can't  blame  her." 

"Mopey  and  languid,  and  given  to  long 
and  solitary  walks,  only  she  has  to  walk  so 
far  here  to  get  to  the  solitary  places  that 
she  's  been  sort  of  forced  into  mixing  with 
people,  which  seems  very  hard  luck  to  her, 
but  is  the  best  possible  thing,  of  course," 
said  Dell  briskly.  "She  's  taken  it  rather 
hard,  but  she  has  sense  enough  to  know, 
from  all  the  evidence  you  and  I  presented, 
that  that  beast  of  a  Marmaduke  Saals- 
field  was  as  great  a  bounder  as  she  could 
ever  know.  It  was  outrageous  that  she 
ever  met  him,  but  in  these  days  one  can't 
keep  girls  in  pink  cotton-batting — even 
nunnish  creatures  like  Vee.  And  then, 
when  she  was  allowed  to  go  up  to  those 
Mortimers  for  the  holidays,  what  could 
you  or  Aunt  Frances  expect !" 


CLEM 

"They  are  undoubtedly  undesirable  peo 
ple,"  Lorimer  began,  but  Dell  interrupted. 

"Oh,  that  depends  on  the  point  of  view, 
Drake.  Of  their  sort  they  're  a  very  good 
sort.  Not  squeamish  at  all,  nothing  belles- 
lettres  about  them  or  their  crowd,  but  they 
know  how  to  put  up  a  jolly  good  time 
for  themselves  and  their  friends,  of  whom 
I  'm  one.  We  were  n't  here  then,  or 
we  'd  probably  have  been  in  the  party, 
in  which  case  I  think  I  would  have  sent 
Vee  home.  It  was  too  raw  an  initiation 
into  the  free-spoken  life.  How  is  it  that 
extremes  do  so  attract!  One  would  have 
thought  that  Vee  would  have  been  the  last 
girl  there  to  catch  his  eye,  but  she  was  the 
first  as  I  had  the  tale  from  Fannie  Morti 
mer,  and  Vee— of  course  he  's  a  black, 
satanic,  temple- frosted,  interesting-looking 
man  of  the  world,  and  to  Vee -he  seemed 
the  epitome  of  all  wisdom.  Well,  he  knows 
enough !" 

Lorimer  smiled  grimly.  "And  now,  at 
least,  Vee  knows  a  small  part  of  the  man- 


CLEM 

ner  of  his  wisdom.  It  was  like  pulling  a 
flower  to  pieces,  to  tell  her." 

"Oh,  that  was  n't  so  hard,"  said  Dell 
wisely,  "as  telling  her  that  he  'd  put  up  no 
fight.  At  first  she  'd  have  defied  us  all,  if 
he  'd  met  her  half-way." 

"The  man  could  n't,"  Lorimer  protested, 
whereat  Mrs.  Gresham  snapped  her  fingers 
contemptuously. 

"Of  course  he  could  n't,  but  did  that  keep 
Vee's  pride  from  being  cut  into  decimated 
ribbons!  That  's  what  hurts  the  child  so 
bitterly;  though  it  's  killed  her  fascination 
as  nothing  else  could,  not  even  your  shock 
ing  disclosures.  Here 's  Aunt  Frances.  To 
the  rescue,  Drake !" 

"Don't  rush  away,"  said  Lorimer  calmly. 

"Oh,  thanks,  but  Eaton  is  glowering," 
returned  Mrs.  Gresham,  with  the  most 
brazen  of  glances  at  Gresham's  placid  face. 
"Thanks,  Aunt  Frances,  I  can't.  But  you 
keep  Drake  company.  This  corner  is  the 
coolest  spot  about  here  to-day." 

She  pushed  forward  a  chair  for  Mrs. 
Wines,  quite  close  to  Lorimer's. 


CLEM 

"Cheer  him  up,  Aunt  Frances,"  she  said. 
"His  latest  hero  ought  to  marry  one  girl, 
and  naughtily  prefers  another.  And  this 
hero  is  no  puppet." 

She  flashed  one  wickedly  amused  glance 
at  Lorimer  and  slipped  away. 


II 


A 5  Dell  disappeared,  Mrs.  Wines  turned 
with  cordial  eagerness  to  Lorimer. 

"It  is  such  a  pleasure  to  see  you  again  so 
soon,"  she  said.  "Last  week  your  trip  was 
so  flying,  and  the  confusion  of  that  charity 
fete  so  great,  that  it  was  anything  but  sat 
isfactory."  She  stopped  to  look  search- 
ingly  at  him.  "Something  is  vexing  you," 
she  declared.  "Something  which  will  not 
work  out,  will  not  come  right.  I  thought 
the  book  was  altogether  and  finally  done." 

She  bent  toward  him,  a  charming  woman 
of  barely  twoscore  years,  with  a  beauty 
which  was  entirely  individual.  Her  color 
ing  was  the  peculiar  pale-brown  color- 
scheme  which  tinges  the  eyes,  the  hair,  and 
even  the  skin  with  a  faint,  lovely  olive.  Her 
face  was  purely  and  delicately  modeled,  and 
her  still  slender  figure  held  the  lines  of  her 
early  youth. 


CLEM 

Lorimer  smiled.  "Merely  an  inconse 
quent  point,"  he  assured  her.  "I  've  been 
rushing  the  novel  through,  trying  to  get 
the  manuscript  in  before  the  first  of  the 
month,  and  haste  and  hot  weather  have 
played  havoc  with  my  nerves  and  temper." 

"Oh,  pray  don't  speak  of  nerves  and 
havoc!"  Mrs.  Wines  exclaimed  wearily. 
"All  my  summer  plans  have  gone  magnifi 
cently  awry.  We  should  have  been  settled 
at  The  Pines  now,  with  the  first  fortnight 
almost  ended.  But  the  workmen  have  dal 
lied,  and  will  not  be  out  for  another  two 
weeks.  You  will  come  to  us  at  the  given 
word?" 

"At  the  drop  of  the  hat!"  Lorimer  as 
sured  her.  "As  it  is,  though,  you  all  but 
have  the  regular  group  here— Dell,  Eaton, 
Farda,  Lowe,  Virginia — " 

"But  here!"  sighed  Mrs.  Wines.  This 
stay  at  a  noisy  summer  resort  had  not 
formed  any  part  of  her  summer  plans,  for 
the  last  week  in  June  always  found  her  in 
her  rambling,  beautiful  summer  home,  with 
a  party  about  her  made  up  of  friends  so 


CLEM 

near  and  congenial  that  it  might  well  be 
called  a  family  affair,  and  which  for  the 
first  fortnight  of  every  summer's  stay,  was 
practically  the  same,  year  after  year.  A  part 
of  its  personnel  might  vary  slightly  from 
summer  to  summer,  but  its  spirit  remained 
constant.  This  summer,  however,  during 
the  enforced  wait,  more  to  please  her  im 
perious  young  son  than  from  her  own 
choice,  she  had  been  staying  at  this  place 
of  his  choosing,  this  somewhat  loud  sum 
mer  resort,  not  so  thronged,  so  early  in  the 
season,  as  to  make  it  unbearable,  but  even 
now  a  place  where  the  hotel  contingent  ar 
rogantly  outshone  the  cottage  cliques  in 
number  and  display. 

"Yet  I  am  surprised  to  find  you  lounging 
here,"  she  added,  after  a  moment's  pause. 
"I  thought  I  heard  you  and  Reggie  plan 
ning  a  stupendous  tramp  for  to-day,  and 
when  neither  of  you  appeared  at  luncheon 
I  thought  you  were  taking  it." 

"I  lunched  at  the  club,"  Lorimer  ex 
plained.  "I  was  feeling  in  fine  feather  for 
a  prolonged  stroll,  and  it  met  with  Reggie's 


CLEM 

great  favor  when  I  suggested  it;  but  later 
the  old  chap  ducked,  and  I  could  n't  hit  his 
trail." 

"That  is  not  right,"  said  Reggie's 
mother  disapprovingly.  "His  time  has 
been  greatly  taken  up  ever  since  he  came 
down  here,  but  when  you  are  willing  to 
give  him  as  much  of  your  time  as  you  do, 
he  should  at  least  keep  his  engagements 
with  you — " 

Lorimer  raised  a  beseeching  hand. 
"Never  dare  breathe  such  a  thing  to  Reg 
gie!  Never!  I  am  absurdly  fond  of  the 
boy,  and  in  spite  of  the  fifteen  years  be 
tween  us,  he  has  always  condescended  to 
look  upon  me  as  one  of  his  immediate  gen 
eration.  Don't  ever  let  such  a  gross  insinua 
tion  as  respect  for  the  age  he  so  blithely 
ignores  come  between  him  and  me !" 

Mrs.  Wines  looked  at  him  with  tender 
gratitude. 

"How  wisely  his  father  planned  for 
him!"  she  breathed.  "When  he  gave  you 
such  charge  over  him — to  be  his  friend.  I 
can  never  thank  you,  Drake,  for  what  you 


CLEM 

have  done  for  him,  been  to  him;  for  your 
help  to  me  with  him;  for  your  loyalty  to 
his  father's  trust  in  you !" 

She  paused  a  moment,  looking  with  sof 
tened  eyes  across  the  flowering  lawns  to  the 
sea  beyond.  Then  she  turned  back  to  him. 

"It  gives  me  such  comfort  always  to 
remember  his  last  charge  to  you,  a  charge 
which  has  never  yet  weighed  heavily  on 
you,  for  there  has  never  been  a  moment 
when  imminent  anxiety  about  my  boy  has 
assailed  me;  but  it  is  a  comfort  always  to 
remember  that  you  have  promised  us  both, 
his  father  and  me,  if  the  time  of  trial  or 
need  comes,  to  stand  by  Reggie." 

"The  promise  was  a  feeble  return  for  all 
Morley  Wines  did  for  me— meant  to  me," 
Lorimer  reminded  her  gently.  "I  never 
gain  a  laurel  leaf,  you  know,  however 
small,  that  I  don't  feel  like  laying  it  on  his 
tomb.  He  took  me  out  of  his  lecture- 
courses,  a  half-blind  cub,  and  he  opened  my 
eyes  and  fed  me  on  his  knowledge  and  his 
supreme  culture — and,  after  all,  the  prom 
ise  has  been  a  perfunctory  one.  Reggie 


CLEM 

is  n't  the  sort  of  chap  to  cause  one  much 
anxiety  about  his  welfare." 

"Indeed  no,"  assented  his  mother,  with 
tranquil  pride.  "And  so  much  of  that  is 
due  to  you — ah,  I  know  it,  if  you  will  not 
let  me  say  it.  I  remember  so  often,  during 
those  last  weeks,  his  father  told  me  that  a 
time  was  coming,  sooner  or  later  in  the 
boy's  life,  when  I  could  not  count,  objec 
tively,  at  least;  when  it  would  take  a  man 
to  help  him,  to  lift  him  up,  and  set  him  on 
his  feet  again;  and  he  chose  you  for  that 
time,  when  it  should  come.  And  I  am 
wondering,  really,  if  I  shall  ever  need  you 
so;  if  Reggie  will  ever,  for  a  time  even, 
thrust  me  to  one  side,  and  make  me  of  no 
account  in  his  life.  It  is  wisdom  to  think 
he  will,  and  to  be  prepared,  but  deep  in  my 
heart  I  am  at  peace." 

"When  the  time  comes,  command  me," 
Lorimer  said  briefly. 

Mrs.  Wines  laughed  lightly.  "One  must 
believe,  however,  in  the  eternal  balance  of 
things.  And  I  must  expect,  therefore,  in 
the  very  scheme  of  nature,  that  he  will 


CLEM 

some  time,  sooner  or  later,  depart  from  the 
pleasant  paths  where  we  have  walked  to 
gether  all  his  happy  life  long — " 

In  the  tense  silence  which  fell  Lorimer 
glanced  up,  to  look  upon  a  poignant  bit  of 
human  melodrama.  Mrs.  Wines  was  lean 
ing  forward,  her  wide  eyes  fastened  on  the 
path  just  below  them,  a  path  screened  for 
the  most  part  by  position  and  shrubbery, 
whereon  two  people  stood;  one  of  them 
young  Reginald  Wines,  and  beside  him, 
almost  his  peer  in  height,  the  girl  of  the 
brilliant  red  trap  and  the  black  horses ;  the 
girl  of  Claude  Denys'  portraying — Clem 
Merrit.  She  was  tall,  strikingly  beautiful, 
molded  along  superb  lines.  She  was  of  the 
pure  blonde  type.  Her  hair  was  like  spun 
gold,  without  a  tinge  of  cendre  in  it;  it  was 
the  liquid  honey  of  the  harvest  moon.  Her 
eyes  were  as  blue  as  the  sea  they  looked  out 
upon.  Her  eyebrows  were  exquisitely  pen 
ciled,  so  finely  drawn,  with  such  delicate 
darkness  and  precision  of  outline,  that  one 
was  fain  to  wonder  if  such  perfection  could 
be  nature  unassisted.  Her  coloring  was  so 


CLEM 

splendid  that  the  same  provocative  thought 
again  intruded  itseif.  Her  figure  was  per 
fect,  and  her  clinging  dress  of  lace  and 
linen  caressed  every  lovely  line.  And  in 
her  eyes  as  she  looked  upon  the  boy,  and 
most  of  all,  in  his  eyes  as  he  looked  on 
her —  There  was  little  that  was  tangible 
in  the  scene,  but  the  atmosphere  was  suffo 
cating,  and  in  that  lay  all  the  reason  why 
this  mother  should  sink  back  in  her  chair 
as  she  did,  faint  and  sick,  and  white  to  the 
lips.  Up  to  this  moment  she  had  earnestly 
believed  that  she  knew  every  thought  of 
her  open-hearted  boy.  She  had  even 
spoken  to  him  of  this  girl,  frankly,  dis 
dainfully — before  she  knew,  before  she 
knew !  But  this  little  scene,  one  upon  which 
a  staring  universe  might  have  gazed  and 
been  none  the  wiser,  told  her  absolutely 
that  somehow  her  boy  was  wholly  hers  no 
more,  that  he  was  living  now  a  phase  of 
life  from  whose  sharing  she  was  shut  out. 
And  the  thought  was  a  shock.  As  a 
youngster  Reggie  had  loathed  dancing- 
school  and  its  short-skirted  little  girls.  In 

DO 


CLEM 

his  preparatory  school-days  he  had  fol 
lowed  a  god  instead  of  any  goddess — that 
great  god  whose  symbol  is  a  pigskin  ball. 
So  far  he  had  had  no  time  for  the  worship 
of  girls;  and  now,  without  warning,  and 
without  choice — though  when  did  a  mother 
ever  choose ! — this  thing  was  thrust  nakedly 
upon  her ! 

Now  came  Drake  Lorimer's  bad  quarter 
of  an  hour,  to  whose  full  enjoyment  Dell 
Gresham  had  maliciously  left  him;  during 
which  he  spoke  with  the  full  courage  of  his 
lack  of  conviction.  In  these  last  two  days 
stray  bits  of  gossip  had  come  his  way  with 
that  fiendish  directness  which  a  dominant 
idea  impels.  The  girl  herself  had  struck 
his  eye  at  every,  turn.  He  had  seen  Reggie 
numbered  in  her  train  without  undue  promi 
nence,  yet  wearing  a  confident  calm  which 
was,  to  his  moral  guardian,  rather  discon 
certing  than  reassuring,  and  which  argued, 
in  so  young  a  lover,  no  pangs  of  uncer 
tainty.  Lorimer  had  learned,  too,  that 
there  were  many  hours  in  the  day  when 
Miss  Merrit  could  not  be  found;  hours 


CLEM 

when  she  vanished  with  her  horses  and 
Reggie,  or  with  her  motor  car  and  Reggie, 
or  on  foot  with  Reggie.  Through  all  his 
specific  arguments  anent  Reggie's  good 
sense  and  his  general  arguments  that  a  boy 
must  have  an  experience  or  two,  there  had 
run,  like  a  glaring  thread,  a  disquieting 
doubt  of  the  woman  herself.  For  young 
Reginald  Wines,  arrived  at  years  of  dis 
cretion,  would  be  very  much  worth  while, 
and  it  might  easily  occur  to  an  adventuress, 
even  to  an  honest  woman  struggling  hon 
estly  for  social  advancement,  that  the  com 
ing  years  were  more  easily  assured  by  at 
taching  the  present  immature  ones. 

Given  these  previous  reflections,  there 
fore,  Lorimer  faced  a  situation  when  the 
pained  eyes  of  the  boy's  mother  met  his  in 
mute  question;  and  facing  them,  he  made 
something  of  a  botch  at  lying  like  a  gen 
tleman,  and  the  truths  he  had  to  tell  were 
bitter  ones.  His  only  counsel,  to  give  the 
boy  his  head  and  time,  a  bit  of  counsel 
based  primarily  on  the  eternal  pitilessness 
of  man  to  man  in  all  affairs  of  -love  or 

3  C333 


CLEM 

matrimony,  was  not  a  counsel  to  satisfy 
here,  and  other  than  this  he  had  none  to 
offer. 

"The  surest  way  to  precipitate  all  things 
is  to  try  to  put  a  stop  to  anything,"  he  re 
peated  several  times.  "One  can't  meddle. 
Both  he  and  the  girl  would  resent  it  in 
stantly,  and  rightly.  He  has  come  to  the 
place  at  last,  Frances,  where  you  and  I, 
both  of  us,  are  helpless.  He  must  work 
out  of  this  himself,  just  as  any  man's  ulti 
mate  salvation  lies,  finally,  in  his  own 
hands." 

But  if  he  fell  before  the  situation,  Mrs. 
Wines  rose  to  it  gallantly,  and  after  her 
departure,  Lorimer  sat  frowning  over  the 
silken  bonds  she  had  wound  about  him  with 
a  feminine  finesse. 

On  this  night  there  was  to  be  a  faint 
echo  of  last  week's  charity  fete  in  the  form 
of  a  charity  dance,  and  Lorimer,  hitherto 
free  to  go  or  to  stay  away,  was  pledged 
now  to  go.  As  he  sat  there,  after  his  mer 
ciless  captor  had  departed,  though  in  sorry 

D-O 


CLEM 

triumph  after  all,  he  stared  sadly  at  the 
spot  where,  not  long  before,  two  young 
creatures  had  unwittingly  betrayed  much 
to  eyes  altogether  unsympathetic. 

"I  act  a  chivalrous  role  to-night/'  he 
murmured  dismally.  "Special  watch  in 
murderers'  row,  and  if  I  succeed  in  don 
ning  the  confessor's  hood,  so  much  the  bet 
ter.  And  the  girl — after  all,  the  entire 
question  resolves  itself  into  this:  is  she  or 
is  she  not — " 

But  at  this  point  young  Reggie  Wines, 
healthy,  happy,  and  buoyantly  alive, 
vaulted  lightly  over  the  railing  to  suggest 
taking  their  deferred  stroll. 

On  their  return  they  passed  an  open 
pavilion  where  Miss  Merrit  was  holding 
court.  She  was  still  in  the  white  linen  and 
lace  creation  in  which  she  had  driven  down 
the  beach  driveway  behind  her  jet-black 
horses,  and  the  number  of  men  surround 
ing  her  was  appalling — might  be,  that  is, 
to  so  young  a  lover.  Lorimer  glanced 
briefly  at  Reggie,  and  felt  more  discon- 


CLEM 

certed  than  he  cared  to  confess,  when  he 
saw  the  boy's  face  showed  no  trace  of  con 
cern.  He  was  too  evidently  sure  of  his 
ground. 

As  they  came  directly  opposite  the 
pagoda-like  structure,  within  full  hearing 
of  the  somewhat  loud  talk  and  laughter, 
the  girl  turned  slightly  from  her  group  of 
highly  entertained  men  to  smile  brightly, 
sunnily,  at  Reggie  Wines.  Lorimer 
winced  slightly  at  the  significance  of  the 
glance,  fleeting  as  a  breath  of  the  west 
wind,  yet  laden  with  the  mystery  of  com 
mon  memories.  There  was  nothing  subtle, 
however,  in  the  way  in  which  she  met 
Lorimer's  eyes  in  full  gaze,  with,  obvious 
recognition.  Lorimer  bowed,  in  return  for 
that  recognition  which  he  felt  had  nothing 
whatever  to  do  with  their  fugitive  meeting 
in  her  gipsy  tent  a  week  before.  The  girl 
evidently  knew  him,  and  knew  him  thor 
oughly.  Under  other  conditions  it  might 
have  flattered  him  somewhat,  since  he  was 
no  more  than  mortal  man ;  but  this  evening 

C363 


CLEM 

he  felt  no  throb  of  satisfied  vanity.  Her 
recognition  of  him  seemed  not  flattering  so 
much  as  ominous.  In  a  silence  that  was 
distinctly  unrestful,  he  and  Reginald 
walked  the  short  remaining  distance  to 
their  hotel. 


C37] 


Ill 


T  ATER  that  evening,  Lorimer,  immo- 
-L'  lated  on  an  altar  which  he  himself  had 
helped  to  rear,  approached  Clem  Merrit, 
and  took  her  card  from  her. 

"You  remember  me,"  he  asserted 
humbly.  "You  told  me  my  fortune  a 
week  ago,  which  was  altogether  clever. 
Your  recognition  of  me  this  afternoon 
makes  me  bold  enough  to  dare  this  throng 
surging  about  you,  and  that  without  delay. 
I  am  taking  the  ninth." 

"Everything  in  sight,  that  is,"  said  Clem 
Merrit  gaily.  "No,  I  was  n't  saving  it  up, 
not  for  anybody,  unless  it  was  Reggie,  and 
he  's  got  his  share,  /  think." 

Lorimer  scribbled  his  name  with  a  smile. 
He  thought  that  he  would  like  to  try  the 
interesting  experiment  of  putting  a  book 
of  purest  English  prose  into  Miss  Merrit's 
hands,  and  beseeching  her  to  read  there- 

[383 


CLEM 

from.  He  wondered  if  she  might  not 
make  Addison  and  De  Quincey,  in  their 
most  exalted  and  sonorous  moments,  read 
like  modern  slang.  It  was  not  always  her 
words  which  put  the  flavor  of  cant  into  her 
phrasings,  although  her  speech  was  plenti 
fully  besprinkled  with  the  paprika-like  zest 
of  colloquialisms.  The  more  he  listened  to 
her,  the  more  definite  his  feeling  grew  that 
it  was  the  girl's  intonations  which  made 
her  manner  of  speech  distinctively  her  own. 

"The  boy  is  fortunate,"  he  said,  not 
without  intention,  as  he  returned  her  card. 

"Yes,"  agreed  the  girl.  "He  's  got  just 
about  every  other  one,  and  then  some. 
Yes,  I  remember  you.  I  've  seen  you  all 
over  the  place  lately.  You  're  a  great 
friend  of  the  Wineses,  are  n't  you?  I 
know  lots  of  people  here  that  way,  by 
sight.  You  forever  meet  people  here  that 
way,  till  you  know  them  like  your  grand 
mother's  picture,  and  then,  when  you  do 
the  decent  thing  and  speak — "  She  drew 
her  bare  shoulders  together  and  shivered 
exaggeratedly.  "But  you  're  not  that 

D9] 


CLEM 

sort,"  she  added.  "Not  if  you  're  Reggie's 
sort.  Reggie  's  straight  as  a  string."  She 
nodded  her  head  at  him  with  marked  con 
fidence,  and  smiled  her  large-hearted,  irre 
sistible  smile.  Evidently  with  him,  for 
some  reason  not  yet  explained,  she  felt 
thoroughly  en  rapport. 

More  than  once,  as  he  listened,  Lorimer 
became  convinced  that  here  lay  something 
which  it  behooved  some  one  to  meet  and 
cope  with  to  a  finish.  One  might  easily 
understand  how  a  boy  would  fall  powerless 
before  such  friendly  beauty.  There  was 
no  shred  of  boasting  in  her  speech,  and  it 
was  the  absence  of  that  ultra-feminine 
thing  which  stirred  Lorimer  to  quick  anx 
iety.  He  knew  well  that  Reggie  was  in 
deed  as  straight  as  a  string.  It  occurred  to 
him  just  here,  with  the  force  of  a  totally 
new  idea,  that  this  girl  might  be  possessed 
of  the  same  quality;  might  mean  all  of 
what  her  assured  words  seemed  to  convey ; 
and  then — what? 

"Here  comes  Jack!"  the  girl  added. 
"Jack  Lowe.  He  's  the  one  who  brought 

C403 


CLEM 

you  in  to  have  your  palm  read,  you  know. 
He  's  a  great  friend  of  yours  and  the 
Wineses,  too,  ain't  he  ?  Well,  he  's  a  great 
friend  of  mine,  too — to  have  met  him  two 
years  ago,  and  not  have  run  up  against  him 
since!  Yes,  I  remember  a  great  lot,  one 
way  and  another.  How  do  I  know  all  the 
truck  I  read  from  your  hand  ?  Oh,  I  don't 
explain  my  little  system.  My  book  's  my 
own,  and  if  I  give  myself  heavy  odds  no 
body  knows  it  but  me.  These  hotel  porches 
are  enough,  though,  to  put  any  canny  body 
into  the  fortune-telling  business,  with  their 
tattle  and  their  gabble.  I  '11  be  round  this 
corner  when  your  turn  comes.  No,  not 
with  anybody  special.  Just  floating 
round.  A  great  deal  nicer  way,  /  think !" 

Lorimer,  dismissed,  looked  dutifully 
about  him  for  his  young  cousin,  who,  in 
spite  of  her  serious  little  face,  and  her 
serious  little  views,  was  as  fond  of  motion 
as  any  twenty-year-old  girl  should  be;  but 
neither  she  nor  Mrs.  Wines  was  yet  in  evi 
dence.  Whereupon  Mr.  Lorimer  heaved  a 
sigh  of  infinite  relief,  and  retired  to  an  ob- 

r.40 


CLEM 

scure  corner  where  he  might  reflect  upon 
subtleties  and  values  until  such  time  as  he 
should  be  compelled  to  hark  to  duty's  call. 

Two  hours  later  he  found  Clem  Merrit, 
in  her  designated  corner,  floating  round  in 
the  sense  that  she  was  not  attached  in  the 
remotest  manner  to  any  woman  there,  al 
though  she  was  hemmed  in  by  a  double  cor 
don  of  men.  The  evening  was  warm,  and 
many  chiffons  and  flowers  hung  dejected, 
but  among  her  dilapidated  sisters  Clem 
Merrit  shone  resplendent.  Her  gown  was 
still  fresh  and  perfect,  though  by  nature 
perishable.  She  was  cool  and  unflushed, 
and  she  breathed  evenly.  And  her  laugh 
was  gayer  and  louder,  and  her  eyes  more 
purely  blue  and  gleaming. 

As  she  saw  Lorimer  approaching,  she 
reached  forward  and  tapped  a  man  smartly 
on  the  shoulder. 

"Down  in  front,  Mr.  Prentiss !"  she  said, 
with  her  indescribable  intonation  which 
made  common  things  seem  fresh,  and  any 
thing,  old  or  new,  common.  "There  's  a 
man  behind  you  I  want  to  see." 


CLEM 

She  swept  the  entire  circle  aside,  with 
flattering  indifference  and  speed,  and 
swayed  toward  Lorimer,  thoroughly  at  her 
ease.  He  had  never  seen  her  for  an  in 
stant  when  she  was  not  the  embodiment  of 
composure,  and  with  his  imagination  in 
full  play  he  could  not  conjure  up  the  vision 
of  a  situation  where  she  would  not  be 
mentally  comfortable. 

She  danced  perfectly,  and  while  she 
danced  she  talked  incessantly  of  people  and 
things,  with  an  infectious  good  humor  and 
a  frank  and  beguiling  confidence.  Sud 
denly  she  stopped  with  a  pleased  little  cry. 

"There  's  Mrs.  Wines  yonder,  alone. 
I  've  sort  of  fallen  in  love  with  that  woman 
at  a  distance,  do  you  know  ?"  She  laughed 
carelessly  at  her  own  folly.  "Ordinarily  I 
don't  like  women  much.  I  've  never  met 
her,"  she  added. 

The  inference  was  unmistakable,  and 
Lorimer  made  it  gratefully,  thereby  easing 
his  spirit  mightily. 

"Shall  we  go  over  to  her?"  he  asked. 
There  was  a  disgusted  weariness  in  his 


CLEM 

voice,  carefully  held  under  though  it  was. 
He  was  altogether  out  of  humor  with  his 
task,  and  he  cursed  circumstances  vigor 
ously  as  he  looked  down  into  the  girl's 
frank,  lovely  eyes. 

"Yes,  indeed!"  said  Clem  Merrit  em 
phatically;  and  the  effect  was  precisely  as 
if  she  had  said,  "You  bet!"  "I  actually 
ought  to  know  Mrs.  Wines,"  she  continued 
easily,  as  they  crossed  the  room  together, 
"knowing  Reggie  so  awfully  well  as  I  do. 
I  've  kept  telling  him  it  looked  queer,  and 
that  she  'd  be  sure  to  think  so." 

The  next  moment  she  was  holding  out 
her  hand  with  thorough  good-will  to  the 
black-gowned  woman  before  her.  It  was 
not  a  small  hand,  yet  for  her  it  was  not  too 
large,  being  simply  a  part  of  her  fine  pro 
portion.  It  was  hardly  a  blue-blooded 
hand,  but  it  was  one  which  not  one  Ameri 
can  woman  in  ten  thousand  possesses,  and 
it  had  had  for  some  years  every  advantage 
which  unremitting  grooming  could  give  it. 

'  I  've  been  telling  him,"  she  said  easily, 
"that  I  ought  to  know  you,  knowing  Reg- 

C44] 


CLEM 

gie  so  well.  I  Ve  told  Reggie  lots  of  times 
you  'd  think  it  was  queer,  him  and  me  to 
gether  so  much,  and  you  and  me  per 
fect  strangers.  I  told  him  I  reckoned  he 
did  n't  intend  we  should  ever  meet  till  we 
had  to." 

Her  rich  laugh  rang  out.  For  the  frac 
tion  of  a  second  Mrs.  Wines  caught  her 
under  lip  hard ;  then  she  spoke  gently : 
"Since  you  are  a  friend  of  my  son's — " 
"Oh,  that!"  laughed  the  girl.  "Yes, 
we  're  friends  all  right!"  She  nodded  at 
Lorimer,  neither  with  special  significance 
nor  with  awkward  consciousness ;  rather  as 
if  certain  signs  were  understocrd  by  the 
initiated,  and  as  if  she  regarded  him  as  one 
capable  of  such  frankly  certain  interpreta 
tion.  She  turned  back  to  Mrs.  Wines 
with  what  Lorimer  translated  as  a  certain 
condescension  toward  one  not  yet  within 
the  inner  circle,  and  she  dropped  down  on 
the  divan  where  the  older  woman  was  sit 
ting.  Her  pale  draperies  flowed  lightly 
over  the  tissue  of  Mrs.  Wines'  gown,  and 
her  white  neck  and  shoulders  and  her 

C453 


CLEM 

golden  head  rose  in  exquisite  relief  against 
the  dark-green  velvet  background. 

"You  run  along,"  she  said  to  Lorimer. 
"We  don't  need  you  any  longer,  do  we. 
Mrs.  Wines?  I  '11  cut  a  dance  later  and 
make  it  up."  Then,  with  a  dismissing 
nod  and  smile,  she  turned  to  the  woman 
beside  her. 

"I  've  been  wanting  to  see  you  for  days," 
she  said  frankly.  "I  don't  take  to  women, 
as  I  was  just  telling  him ;  most  of  them  are 
a  poor  lot;  but  you  took  my  fancy  even 
before  I  had  any  idea  you  were  Reggie's 
mother,  before  I  knew  Reggie  even.  He  's 
talked  about  you  some."  She  paused  al 
most  hopefully.  "I  reckon  he  has  n't 
talked  to  you  much  about  me,  has  he? 
Has  n't  told  you  anything?" 

Mrs.  Wines  struggled  with  a  sick  dis 
gust  and  a  paralyzing  fear.  Her  world 
swam  before  her  eyes  in  a  grim  chaos. 

"My  son  has  told  me  nothing,"  she  said 
at  last,  almost  in  a  whisper. 

Clem  Merrit  sank  back  against  the  divan, 
and  twisted  her  fan  in  her  white  fingers. 

[463 


CLEM 

For  the  first  time  she  felt  and  showed  a 
touch  of  nervousness,  and  with  her  strong, 
beautiful  hands  she  worked  almost  sav 
agely  at  the  mother-of-pearl  sticks.  Sud 
denly  they  snapped  and  she  crushed  the 
entire  pearl  and  lace  creation  together,  and 
flung  it  to  the  floor.  .  >  .•« ; 

"No  more  good !"  she  said,  an  odd  thrill 
running  through  her  voice  and  softening  it 
strangely.  "It  matches  this  dress  too — 
beats  the  fan  that  goes  with  it  all  hollow, 
and  I  got  it  three  years  ago,  in  Paris."  She 
laughed  without  reason  or  happiness,  a 
laugh  whose  frank  pleasure  in  life  was 
gone,  eaten  up  in  fierce  self -consciousness. 
Then  she  turned  back  to  the  older  woman, 
and  faced  her  almost  heroically,  with  a 
dumb  honesty  shining  in  her  eyes. 

"Reggie  's  a  nice  boy,"  she  said,  an  odd 
hush  in  her  voice.  He  's  jast  a  boy  too. 
.  .  .  I  'm  twenty-six." 

She  pulled  recklessly  at  one  of  her 
mauve  orchids.  Her  head  was  bent  and 
her  eyes  were  on  the  flower.  Mrs.  Wines 
turned  and  stared  stonily  upon  her,  and  for 


CLEM 

a  second  she  endured  and  conquered  a 
primal  instinct  to  sound  the  scream  of  mor 
tal  combat.  What  an  awful  ordeal  this  thing 
was  proving  to  be !  For  in  spite  of  her  bit 
ter  shrinking  from  the  girl,  she  felt  with 
terror  that  a  strange,  unwelcome  sympathy 
for  this  creature  was  creeping  over  her, 
and  she  sat  motionless,  caught  fast  in  the 
relentless  grasp  of  a  situation  she  could  not 
master  nor  control. 

Clem  Merrit  broke  the  silence  defiantly, 
with  a  part  of  her  new,  terrible  self-con 
sciousness  still  upon  her.  "But  where  's 
the  odds,"  she  demanded  cogently,  "if — " 

Mrs.  Wines  laid  a  swift  hand  upon  the 
girl's  arm,  in  desperate  impulse  to  stop  any 
admission,  or  confession,  or  confidence ;  and 
with  that  simple  act,  which  might  subtly 
have  invited  confidence,  there  came  an  in 
spiration  to  a  deed  so  bold  that  she  caught 
her  breath  hard.  Under  her  touch  the  girl 
was  sitting  still  and  tense,  with  her  color 
coming  and  going.  At  last  Mrs.  Wines 
broke  the  silence. 


CLEM 

"Are  your  engagements  definite  ones 
just  now?"  she  asked. 

The  girl  stared,  uncomprehending. 
Mrs.  Wines  paused  for  a  scant  second,  and 
then  went  steadily  on,  ignoring  that  last 
chance  of  safe  retreat. 

"Our  country  place  will  be  opened  in  a 
fortnight.  Can  you  arrange  to  be  one  of 
our  first  group  of  guests?  This  is  uncon 
ventional —  I  shall  regard  rules  later,  and 
call — but  I  ask  you  to-night,  because  it  just 
occurs  to  me  that — you  might  care  to  come 
—to  us." 

Clem  Merrit  stared.  Suddenly  she 
smiled  generously.  "That  's  no  matter 
about  the  calling,"  she  said  cordially. 
"Not  between  us.  Run  in  any  time. 
We  're  suite  A4.  Yes,  I  '11  come.  I 
have  n't  got  so  many  summer  invitations 
that  I  can't  arrange  it.  Of  course  I  've 
just  met  you,"  she  added  elaborately;  "but 
I  know  Reggie,  and  I  reckon  it  is  n't  your 
house  any  more  than  it  is  his." 

All  her  old  sang-froid  returned  with  a 

C49] 


CLEM 

rush,  and  with  it  her  brilliant,  happy  smile. 
"There  comes  Reggie,"  she  added  quickly, 
"looking  all  ways  to  see  me  here,  with 
you."  She  laughed  with  a  cordial  appre 
ciation  of  the  young  man's  state  of  mind. 

"I  made  sure  you  'd  given  me  the  slip," 
she  said  freely  to  him,  as  he  joined  them. 

It  was  at  a  great  personal  disadvantage 
that  Reggie  stood  before  the  two  women, 
a  fact  which  he  realized  without  adding 
thereby  to  his  ease.  That  his  mother  had 
not  looked  at  him  once  only  added  to  his 
inner  discomfort,  however  much  it  may  have 
saved  additional  outward  embarrassment. 
He  sought  for  words,  and  found  them  not, 
save  the  conventional  reminder  of  the  pur 
pose  of  his  seeking. 

As  Clem  Merrit  adjusted  her  filmy 
skirts,  preparatory  to  another  rhythmic 
flight,  Mrs.  Wines  responded  convention 
ally. 

"Yes,  I  am  glad  to  have  met  you,"  she 
murmured.  The  words  were  of  the  flattest, 
but  she  was  incapable  then  of  attaining  any 
further  verbal  achievement.  She  was  look- 


CLEM 

ing  at  them  both  now  with  her  grande 
dame  air,  hers  so  much  by  nature  that  it 
slipped  at  times  over  her  sincerest  cor 
diality,  and  under  its  influence  a  touch  of 
her  new  embarrassment  came  back  to 
Clem.  Reggie  saw  both  things,  his  mother's 
hauteur  and  Clem  Merrit's  confusion;  and 
he  threw  back  his  shoulders  with  a  gesture 
which  his  mother  knew,  and  turned  to  the 
girl. 

"I  must  hurry  you  away,"  he  reminded 
her  boyishly,  "if  you  care  for  any  of  this 
two-step." 

"I  do  care,"  said  the  girl.  "We  '11 
vamoose  then.  See  you  later,  Mrs.  Wines." 

The  mother  watched  them  drift  away, 
her  ears  smitten  with  screaming  echoes  of 
the  girl's  parting  words,  tainted  with  the 
verbiage  of  the  streets,  wrested  from  the 
depths  of  her  resources  to  cover  her  un 
welcome  confusion.  If  she  could  have 
been  deceived  in  the  girl's  manner  and 
words,  there  was  that  in  Reggie's  bearing, 
a  new-found  manhood  showing  through 
his  boyish  confusion,  which  made  her  feel 


CLEM 

the  seriousness  of  the  situation  as  she  had 
never  felt  it.  With  a  perception  new  to 
him,  he  had  felt  the  unseen  stress  of  the 
last  moment,  and  there  was  no  mistaking 
the  fact  that  he  had  gone  to  the  girl's  de 
fense  against  his  mother. 

And  she,  his  mother,  what  had  she  done  ? 
The  girl  would  come,  of  course.  .  .  .  Her 
heart  stood  still  with  fear.  What  had  she 
done?  ...  At  last  she  put  Virginia  in 
other  hands  for  the  remainder  of  the  even 
ing,  and  went  away  to  try  to  reason  out 
what  has  no  reason  to  it,  ever — the  first 
serious  love  experience  of  one's  first  and 
only  born. 

AND  while  his  mother  faced  a  sleepless 
night,  her  young  son  was  listening  with  a 
great  and  growing  wonder  to  the  glad  tid 
ings  which  his  beautiful  companion  was 
gleefully  imparting  to  him. 

"It 's  fine,  Reggie,"  she  concluded  heart 
ily.  "With  all  the  fun  you  say  there  is 
there!  And  your  mother  's  lovely!  I 
know  she  thought  it  was  queer  we  had  n't 


CLEM 

met  before.  I  told  her  you  were  shy,  that 
it  was  n't  my  fault !  I  've  kept  telling  you 
we  'd  like  each  other.  Over  yonder  it  's 
less  crowded.  Come  on,  Reggie.  Let  's 
get  out  of  the  push !" 


IV 


TWO  weeks  later  Lorimer  walked  down 
a  country  station  platform  to  meet  his 
young  host  waiting  for  him  in  a  natty  run 
about. 

"Glad  to  see  you,  old  man!"  he  called 
out,  with  a  fair  assumption  of  the  man 
about  town  which  vastly  amused  Lorimer. 
"It  's  a  jolly  fine  thing,  your  getting  down 
here  to-night.  Nobody  's  here  yet,  and 
we  '11  have  things  our  own  way."  He 
reached  down  a  strong  arm  for  Lorimer's 
suit  cases.  "Give  Matthews  your  checks. 
He  '11  fetch  the  rest  of  your  traps.  Jump 
in." 

"So  no  one  's  here,"  said  Lorimer,  after 
he  had  complied  with  Reggie's  mandate, 
and  while  they  were  swinging  across  the 
tracks  toward  the  road  which  led  to  The 
Pines.  "I  was  fearful  that  everything 
would  be  in  full  swing  or  settled  down." 


CLEM 

"Things  have  n't  started  yet,"  replied  the 
young  host.  "Vee  came  over  here  with 
mother  a  week  ago,  and  helped  straighten 
things  out  while  the  workmen  were  still  here, 
and  I  got  here  just  day  before  yesterday.  I 
waited  over — wanted  to  bring  Jack  Lowe 
with  me,  but  he  got  stuck  on  a  shabby  piece 
of  rock  and  some  rotting  seaweed,  and 
would  n't  budge.  He  said  he  'd  been  look 
ing  for  that  'tone'  for  five  years,  and  he  's 
sitting  down  there  on  a  bit  of  beach  right 
now,  painting  for  fair  life.  What  have 
you  been  doing  since  you  dropped  us  all 
like  hot  cakes,  and  pegged  back  to  town  ?" 

"I  had  to  do  some  work  over  again,"  re 
plied  Lorirner.  "Don't  you  mention  these 
last  two  weeks  to  me  again.  I  rejoice, 
Reggie,  that  you  're  no  incipient  genius !" 

"Me!"  ejaculated  Reggie,  with  superb 
disregard  of  his  parts  of  speech.  "Thank 
God,  no!  I  don't  mind  the  college  work, 
since  you  've  let  me  off  that  hanged  math. ; 
but  I  'm  going  into  Wall  Street,  and  corner 
something,  as  soon  as  you  let  me  up  on 
college.  Not  but  what  it  's  all  right  for 

C55] 


CLEM 

another  year,  considering  I  'm  Senior 
then ;  but  after  that  it's  high  time  I  was  out 
fishing  in  a  little  pond  all  for  myself." 

"I  thought  you  were  going  to  travel  for 
a  year  or  two,"  Lorimer  observed  thought 
lessly.  The  boy's  face  flushed. 

"That  's  all  off,"  he  said  hurriedly. 
"I  '11  be  of  age  by  then — I  won't  have  time 
to  loaf  round  seeing  things.  I  '11  have  to  be 
doing  something — making  my  pile."  He 
laughed  nervously. 

"Tell  you,"  he  added  quickly,  without 
waiting  for  comment  upon  his  sudden 
change  of  plans,  comment  indeed  which 
Lorimer  hesitated  to  offer,  "I  want  you  to 
do  a  nice  little  favor  for  me  this  week. 
There  's  going  to  be  a  crowd  here  so  mixed, 
it  brings  tears  to  my  eyes  to  think  of  it,  and 
I  don't  get  the  hang  of  the  confounded 
situation,  how  mother  ever  came  to  mix  it 
so;  and  even  if  Cora  Taylor  did  get 
typhoid,  there  was  n't  any  pressing  need  of 
mother  's  rushing  round  to  fill  her  place. 
Now,  you  '11  do  the  square  thing,  won't 
you,  old  man,  and  make  things  comfort- 

[56] 


CLEM 

able,  for  she  likes  you  down  to  the  ground ; 
said  you  were  a  good  sort,  and  a  fine  fel 
low,  and  I  don't  want  her  to  feel  left  out 
of  it  or  uncomfortable ;  and  you  never  can 
tell  how  the  other  confounded  girls  are  go 
ing  to  jump." 

Lorimer  so  far  forgot  his  great  fatigue 
as  to  turn  fully  half  about,  that  he  might 
better  survey  his  incoherent  host. 

"You  don't  mind  stopping  that  patter  to 
do  a  little  easy  talking  now,  do  you?"  he 
inquired  with  much  pathos. 

Reggie  cut  at  his  well-going  animal  with 
reprehensible  abstraction.  "Yes,  I  do 
mind!"  he  said  firmly.  "Some  things  I 
don't  care  to  talk  over,  and  between  men 
there  's  no  use.  You  can  understand  things 
without  confounded  talking.  But  you  keep 
an  eye  to  the  wind,  and  an  ear  to  the 
ground,  and  do  what  you  think  ought  to  be 
done,  when  it  ought  to  be  done;  and  even 
then,  even  you  can't  mix  oil  and  water. 
It  's  a  hanged  unlucky  deal !" 

They  had  entered  the  gate  which  marked 
the  beginning  of  the  Wines  estate,  and 

[57] 


CLEM 

were  speeding  rapidly  along  the  pine-lined 
avenue  which  led  to  the  house.  Lorimer 
began  to  whistle  mournfully  the  latest 
thing  in  sentimental  song  lore,  and  did  not 
speak  until  the  journey  was  ended,  and 
Reggie  had  deposited  him  unceremoniously 
at  the  short  branch  driveway  which  led 
directly  to  the  house. 

"I  '11  just  get  around  to  the  stables,"  he 
said  easily,  "and  finish  arrangements  for 
meeting  that  mob  to-morrow,  and  you 
might  take  your  things,  too ;  you  may  need 
'em  before  I  get  back." 

So  Lorimer,  still  whistling  dismally, 
went  slowly  up  the  foot-path  with  a  suit 
case,  and  was  met  at  the  veranda  steps  by 
his  hostess  and  his  cousin,  and  Reggie's 
inhospitality  was  mourned  over,  and  Lori 
mer  was  comforted  with  flagons  of  what 
ever  nature  he  wished. 

That  night  dinner  was  a  small  affair  for 
four,  served  on  a  screened  veranda  over 
looking  the  ocean,  which  was  radiant  with 
color  and  loveliness.  The  dinner  was  satis 
fying  and  delightful,  yet  a  certain  restraint 

C58] 


CLEM 

hung  over  them  all.  Reggie  frowned  por 
tentously  to  himself  more  than  once.  Vir 
ginia  sat  through  the  silences,  busy  with 
her  own  thoughts,  the  only  one  entirely  un 
affected  by  the  slight  strain  of  the  hour. 
Mrs.  Wines  was  openly  abstracted,  and 
Lorimer  followed  the  example  of  those 
about  him,  and  indulged  in  grateful  repose. 

An  hour  or  so  after  dinner,  while  they 
were  sitting  quietly  about  the  bare  table, 
Virginia  slipped  away  to  the  music-room, 
to  which  place  she  soon  summoned  Reggie, 
and  began  a  laborious  task  of  putting  him 
through  a  rehearsal  of  a  new  effort  in 
topical  songs,  a  proceeding  which  bade  fair 
to  consume  the  evening,  since  the  song  was 
quite  new;  and  young  Mr.  Wines's  ear  was 
notoriously  poor.  And  then  at  last  Mrs. 
Wines  turned  to  Lorimer,  lying  lazily  back 
in  his  chair. 

"You  left  us  suddenly,  Drake,"  she  mur 
mured.  "No  special  summons?" 

Lorimer  explained  his  recall,  and  re 
ceived  satisfying  sympathy.  "In  fact,"  he 
concluded,  "I  've  been  too  busy  to  do 

C59] 


CLEM 

more  than  wire  you  to-day  that  I  hoped  to 
get  down  to-night.  I  expected  to  break 
into  things  sadly,  and  I  find  I  am  a  first 
arrival." 

"Yes,"  Mrs.  Wines  assented  absently. 
After  a  moment  she  roused  herself.  "I, 
too,  changed  some  plans,"  she  said.  "I 
am  intending  to  ask  your  cooperation, 
Drake,  in  making  a  delicate  experiment 
more  of  a  success  than  it  can  possibly  be 
without  it.  Two  weeks  ago  I  did  a  thing 
on  pure  impulse — " 

There  fell  a  lingering  pause;  Lorimer 
wriggled  further  down  in  his  chair.  A 
cooler  breeze  swept  up  to  them  from  the 
sea.  He  smiled  faintly ;  this  was  evidently 
the  bothersome  crystal  which  had  disturbed 
young  Reginald's  peace,  about  to  be  set 
free  from  the  matrix,  if  figure  might  be 
pressed  so  far.  It  was  an  odd  thing  to  find 
Mrs.  Wines  uncertain  over  any  act  of  hers; 
to  discover  that  she  had  acted  at  last  on 
something  other  than  pure,  sweet  reason. 
It  was  she  who  broke  the  stillness. 

"In  two  days  Miss  Merrit  joins  us  here." 


CLEM 

Life,  after  all,  holds  surprises,  and  Mr. 
Lorimer  sat  slowly  up ;  only  to  sink  deeper 
into  his  chair.  Was  mere  man  ever  to  ar 
rive  at  the  ultimate  analysis  of  the  feminine 
heart,  that  startling  seat  of  trouble  and  up 
rising-,  sedition  and  revolution,  which  has 
swayed  the  world  since  the  world  began ! 

As  the  silence  did  not  lift,  Lorimer 
rightly  concluded  the  next  move  in  the  little 
game  to  be  his. 

"Really!"  he  murmured.  "You  '11  find 
her  an  addition,  no  doubt."  His  lips 
curved  into  *a  smile  which  was  almost  a 
sneer.  How  exquisitely  cruel  the  gentlest 
of  women  could  prove  themselves !  From 
the  music-room  came  the  insistent  sound 
of  the  piano  as  Virginia's  steel-strung 
fingers  thumped  emphatic  time  for  Reg 
gie's  new  song  and  pas  de  seul.  Lorimer's 
eyebrows  arched  themselves  into  a  line 
which  went  harmoniously  with  his  lips.' 

"Reginald,  Reginald!"  he  murmured. 
"How  much,  how  exceeding  much  you 
have  to  answer  for !"  Lorimer  did  not  re 
joice  in  a  fondness  for  the  all-prevailing 


CLEM 

ragtime  rage;  nor,  his  ear  being  acute  to 
misery,  did  he  find  any  pleasure  in  a  seem 
ingly  hopeless  rehearsal. 

Mrs.  Wines  moved  at  last,  emphatically, 
in  her  chair.  "And  you,  too,  judge  me!" 
she  breathed  resentfully.  "So  does  my  son 
condemn  my  tact,  my  good  sense.  Does 
your  judgment,  being  riper,  go  deeper,  to 
the  very  springs  of  human  emotion — devo 
tion,"  she  added  somberly.  Then  she  spoke 
with  entire  change  of  tone  and  manner. 
"Reggie  urges  that  the  group  will  fail  to 
combine."  There  was  in  her  last  words 
a  defiance  mild  but  firm  as  the  eternal.  It 
was  evidently  as  far  as  possible  from  her 
desire  that  the  coming  group  should  fuse 
into  a  well-organized  whole. 

"Farda  Grantham !"  Lorimer  catalogued 
slowly.  "A  Brahms-mad  creature!  Dell 
and  Eaton  Gresham,  unashamed  globe-trot 
ters!  Jack  Lowe,  painter  of  the  stream 
and  the  sea!  One  Reggie  Wines,  a  Har 
vard  youth  with  a  nice  manner  and  be 
witched!  One  Drake  Lorimer!  Little 
Virginia  and  one  Lady  Frances!  No,  it 


CLEM 

does  n't  seem  that  the  new  addition  will 
blend  to  a  perfect  draw !"  He  leaned  for 
ward  quickly. 

"It  will  be  a  little  hard  on  her,  don't  you 
think  ?"  he  asked.  "Just  a  little  hard  ?" 

Mrs.  Wines  flushed,  less  under  hidden 
censure  in  Lorimer's  voice  than  because  of 
her  own  thoughts.  She  knew  the  rush  of 
blood  was  great  enough  to  be  plainly  appa 
rent  beneath  the  almost  full  moon ;  but  she 
drew  herself  up  with  her  own  fine  manner. 

"Of  all  my  guests,"  she  said  with 
hauteur,  "no  one  will  have  the  considera 
tion  shown  her  that  will  be  shown  Miss 
Merrit.  So  thoroughly  am  I  convinced  that 
I  have  acted  on  ill-founded  impulse  that  I 
was  about  to  ask  you  to  be  considerate  of 
impossible  things — to  help  me — to  help  her. 
I  am  not  asking  you,  either,  to  interfere  in 
one  moment  of  the  time  which  Reggie  will 
doubtless  call  his." 

"I  could  n't  do  that,  you  know,"  said 
Lorimer. 

"No,"  assented  the  mother  wearily.  "It 
would  n't  be  best,  of  course." 


CLEM 

Again  Lorimer's  smile  came  and  went. 
They  agreed  on  the  vital  question,  but  for 
totally  different  reasons.  He  reflected  that 
women's  methods,  when  they  found  them 
selves  in  tight  places,  were  often  radically 
unscrupulous,  and  he  discovered,  with  a 
certain  disappointment,  that  this  woman's 
intense  absorption  in  what  was  to  her  the 
greatest  phase  of  the  pitiless  problem  before 
her,  had  lost  to  her  temporarily  her  fine  sense 
of  values.  But  a  part  of  her  genuine  remorse 
seemed  born,  not  so  much  from  a  sense  of 
her  fault  in  having  ignored  the  finer  lines 
of  hospitality,  as  from  secret,  hidden  sym 
pathy  for  the  girl,  existing  side  by  side 
with  the  real  repulsion  she  felt  for  her. 
The  situation  presented  a  living  question 
for  research,  as  to  which  quality  it  argued 
stronger  for:  the  catholic  breadth  of  sym 
pathy  in  one  woman,  or  the  power  of  the 
crude  human  soul  in  the  other,  which  com 
pelled  consideration. 

Half  an  hour  later  Lorimer  roused  him 
self  to  find  the  veranda  deserted;  so  im 
mersed  had  he  been  in  seductive  analysis 


CLEM 

and  synthesis,  that  he  had  not  known  when 
Mrs.  Wines  slipped  away.  From  the  music- 
room  there  came  still  the  insistent  thump 
of  the  piano,  as  Virginia  marked  relentless, 
patient  time  for  Reggie,  who  was  still 
struggling  with  the  same  new  song.  Lori- 
mer  got  slowly  up,  and  stretched  his  arms 
above  his  head. 

"Yes,"  he  said  slowly,  "it 's  a  hard  situa 
tion,  and  an  unfair  test.  She  can't  come 
out  of  it  save  in  one  way.  And  the  boy 
will  undoubtedly  see,  and  she — will  not — I 
trust,  yet  dare  not  hope.  It  's  a  clever 
move,  cruelly  clever,  dear  lady  of  the  gentle 
eyes !" 

He  went  into  the  house,  avoiding  the 
strongly  accentuated  music-room  with  in 
tention  and  ease,  and  went  up  to  his  own 
rooms.  Once  there,  with  a  satisfying  sense 
of  solitude  at  last  enveloping  him,  he  still 
pondered  on  his  problem  with  frowning 
brow. 


TWO  evenings  later,  as  the  sun  was 
sending  its  last  long  rays  across  the 
tops  of  the  dark  pine-trees,  gilding  them 
to  Christmas  gaudiness,  Mrs.  Wines  left 
her  guests  in  their  veranda  corner,  and 
went  quickly  down  the  steps  to  meet  the 
latest  addition  to  her  group,  whom  Reggie 
had  just  brought  from  the  station. 

Clem  Merrit  stepped  lightly  down  from 
the  high  trap.  Her  beauty  was  as  flawless 
as  ever,  and  her  gown  was  Puritan  in  cut 
and  color,  yet,  despite  its  extreme  tailored 
severity,  it  gave  one  the  instantaneous  im 
pression  of  barbaric  gorgeousness.  Vir 
ginia  Garnet,  in  gold-embroidered  silks  and 
ropes  of  pearls  and  rubies,  would  not  have 
borne  the  air  of  assertive  wealth  and  osten 
tation  which  this  man-tailored  creature  car 
ried  with  her  as  she  shook  hands  delight 
edly  with  her  hostess,  and  went  up  the  steps 


CLEM 

beside  her,  turning  once  to  wave  cheerfully 
at  Reggie  as  he  went  on  down  the  drive 
way. 

"Not  a  bit,"  she  said  in  answer  to  Mrs. 
Wines's  patent  query.  "Traveling  never 
tires  me,  and  this  little  run  down  was  great 
fun."  Her  clear  voice  carried  to  the  further 
most  corner  of  the  breezy  veranda,  and  all 
conversation  stopped,  suspended  in  mid-air. 

"Goodness  me!"  she  exclaimed  a  second 
later,  in  frankest  admiration,  as  she  en 
tered  the  hall  and  stared  about  her.  Her 
voice  still  reached  the  group  outside.  "This 
is  a  fine  old  place.  As  much  space  here  as 
in  a  hotel  rotunda.  Yes,  an  hour  's  plenty 
time  to  dress.  Reggie  said  we  might  be 
late,  but  I  wanted  to  come  the  bridge  drive. 
He  said  it  beat  anything  round  here  to 
kingdom  come,  and  I  wanted  to  make  sure 
he  had  n't  lied!"  Her  rich,  unfettered 
laugh  rang  out.  "He  had  n't.  It  sure 
makes  other  things  look  like  thirty  cents 
in  dirty  pennies.  Yes,  Mrs.  Wines,  I  'd 
like  my  trunks  right  up.  I  never  try  to 
travel  in  a  hand-bag  nor  li^e  in  a  suit-case. 

[673 


CLEM 

No,  I  did  n't  bring  my  maid  along.  Her 
sister  's  just  over,  poor  soul,  and  sick,  and 
I  did  n't  have  the  heart  to  make  her  leave 
the  poor  strange  thing  alone,  so  I  left 
Jeanne  behind."  She  said  it  as  if  the  maid 
were  pure  Scotch  instead  of  the  French 
treasure  she  was.  "But  that  does  n't  mat 
ter.  I  don't  have  to  depend  on  another 
woman  to  dress  me,  though  I  might  have 
to  run  in  and  ask  you  to  hook  me  into  any 
thing  princesse,  you  know — " 

As  the  voice  died  away  in  the  far  dis 
tance,  every  one  sitting  without  drew  a 
little  breath  indicative  of  various  emotions. 
Mrs.  Gresham,  sitting  alert  and  thoroughly 
alive,  dropped  heavily  back  into  her  low 
basket-chair. 

"What  under  heaven!"  she  breathed. 
She  glanced  at  her  husband,  and  at  Vir 
ginia.  The  latter  looked  worried,  and  the 
former  shook  a  warning  head.  But  Mrs. 
Gresham  was  never  bound  by  conventional 
reminders  of  marital  authority,  and  she 
touched  Virginia's  arm  with  emphasis. 

"No  wonder  Aunt  Frances  gave  us  dull 

C68] 


CLEM 

generalities  about  the  expected  guest  and 
cleverly  omitted  the  name — how  did  she 
manage  that  last !  What 's  up,  Vee  ?" 

"Mrs.  Wines  just  asked  her,"  Virginia 
replied  stupidly,  "and  she  came." 

"I  think  perhaps  she  might!"  observed 
Mrs.  Gresham  with  decision.  "Indeed,  if 
she  had  refused,  it  would  have  beat — king 
dom  come !" 

Under  cover  of  the  subdued  laugh  which 
broke  out  about  her,  she  edged  her  chair 
nearer  Lorimer's;  both  of  them  reminded 
by  that  simple  act  of  the  afternoon  hardly 
more  than  a  fortnight  before,  when  this 
identical  group  discussed  with  untram 
melled  freedom  this  new,  bewildering  ad 
dition  to  their  quiet  little  party.  Dell  had 
been  on  the  links  ever  since  luncheon,  and 
she  was  in  more  or  less  disarray,  a  usual 
condition  with  her,  and  one  which  never  so 
slightly  detracted  from  the  fascination  of 
her  personality.  Her  hair  was  blown  all 
ways,  and  her  white  linen  dress  was  a  far 
call  from  immaculateness ;  but  she  was  a 
confirmed  camper,  and  much  roughing  it 


CLEM 

in  all  parts  of  the  world  had  brought  her 
at  last  to  the  point  where  its  conditions  be 
came  her,  even  in  civilized  spots. 

"One  heard  all  sorts  of  nonsense  down 
yonder,"  she  said,  in  an  undertone  dis 
tinctly  seductive,  nodding  her  head  in  the 
direction  where  she  fondly  supposed  the 
gossip  to  which  she  referred  had  emanated. 
"Of  course  there  was  heaps  of  gossip  of 
all  sorts,  but  after  all,  I  never  dreamed  it 
could  be  anything  like  this  looks— hm? 
Boys  always  are  wild  over  older  women — 
I  laid  it  all  to  that — down  there!" 

Lorimer  sighed  and  bent  toward  her 
small,  listening  ear.  "I  read  it  precisely  as 
you  read  it,  my  dear  Dell.  So  pleasant  a 
thing  to  meet  a  kindred  soul; — as  you  say, 
boys  are  always  wild  over  older  women. 
And  so,  since  it  is  nothing  serious,  but  a 
merely  natural  condition  which  we  face,  let 
us,  I  beg,  treat  it  in  that  comfortable  man 
ner." 

Dell  grimaced.  "How  did  Reggie  dare 
invite  her,  Drake,  and  how  did  Aunt 
Frances  ever  bring  herself  to  ratify  the 
invitation  ?" 


CLEM 

"Mrs.  Wines  invited  her,  herself,"  Vir 
ginia  put  in,  coolly,  across  her  embroidery- 
hoop. 

"Do  you  know  that,  Vee?"  Dell  shot  the 
question  at  her,  and,  after  the  girl's  nod  of 
assent,  her  black  eyes  glowed. 

"Without  Reggie's  invitation  first !  But 
if  Aunt  Frances  is  the  only  one  blamable, 
then-" 

She  stopped  short,  her  eyes  widening 
enormously,  and  suddenly  a  sharp  "Ah!" 
sped  through  her  set  little  teeth.  She 
glanced  at  Lorimer,  who  refused  to  meet 
her  eyes,  and  then  she  leaned  back  and 
laughed  long  and  softly. 

"It  is  a  pleasure  that  you  find  it  so  amus 
ing,  Dell,"  Farda  Grantham  remarked 
coldly.  "I,  for  one,  can't  understand  it. 
If  the  party  were  larger— but  we  are  so 
small ;  no  one  here  but  Drake  and  Jack,  and 
you  two.  We  shall  be  thrown  together 
constantly,  day  in  and  night  out — there  will 
be  no  escape." 

"Precisely  the  point!"  ejaculated  Mrs. 
Gresham  delightedly. 

"The  Carrols  were  to  have  come,  and 


CLEM 

Andy  Logan,"  Farda  continued  with  dis 
tinct  irritation ;  "but  Mrs.  Wines  is  n't  ex 
pecting  them  now  for  another  fortnight. 
It 's  a  smaller  party  than  we  've  ever  had — 
and  such  an  addition,  to  a  small  party." 

"Precisely!"  Dell  uttered  again.  "Jack, 
would  you  speak  for  ten  dollars  ?" 

Lowe  shook  his  big  head.  "You  are 
speaking  for  me,  with  every  elocutionary 
grace,"  he  remarked,  with  a  slight  bow  in 
the  lady's  direction.  Whereat  her  eyes 
flashed  again  in  appreciation  of  his  enig 
matic  utterance. 

"Well,  I  'm  glad  you  've  known  her  be 
fore,"  she  remarked  genially.  "And  if  I 
remember,  you  think  her  a  rather  good  sort 
in  a  way." 

"We  have  met,"  Lowe  replied.  He 
lighted  another  cigarette  carefully,  and 
then,  through  some  tiny  smoke  wreaths,  he 
looked  deliberately  at  Dell. 

"You  '11  find  her  distinctly  your  sort, 
Dell,  in  fundamentals.  She  's  hardly  a 
woman's  woman,  but  she  's  really  a  curi 
ously  interesting  creature.  In  an  abso- 


CLEM 

lutely  free  atmosphere  she  fits  in  without 
much  of  a  jar — because  there  's  not  an 
ounce  of  pretense  about  her." 

"Then  that  should  settle  the  matter  of 
ease  here,"  said  Farda,  overhearing.  "No 
one  of  us  knows  a  more  delightfully  free 
spot  than  this  roof." 

Lowe  smiled  a  little.  "Absorb  the  atmos 
phere  thereof,  Farda,"  he  suggested.  "She 
won't  care  for  Brahms,  but  she  '11  like  your 
syncopated  Cuban  music  and  your  north 
ern  folk  agonies,  if  I  'm  not  mistaken,  and 
she  herself  can  sing  you  a  song  that  will 
carry  you  back  to  the  Suwanee  River,  if 
you  've  ever  been  fortunate  enough  to  roam 
thereabouts.  So  spare  her,  of  your  mercy 
—  Brahms!" 

"I  '11  ask  her  to  sing,  personally!"  Dell 
graciously  volunteered.  "Understand, 
Farda,  Brahms  is  cut  out  for  some  days." 

"And  all  that  Brahms  stands  for, 
Farda,"  Lowe  implored.  Meantime  Dell 
turned  back  once  more  to  Lorimer. 

"Don't  worry!"  she  said  lightly.  "I 
shall  take  the  entire  situation  with  the  ut- 

[73] 


CLEM 

most  aplomb.  We  are  kindred  spirits,  you 
and  I — as  we  both  say,  boys  are  boys! 
And  I  '11  be  honey  therefore  to  that  funny 
thing  up  yonder." 

She  looked  toward  an  upper  room  not 
far  from  their  right,  whose  great  beauty 
was  a  massive  oriel  window.  From  it  had 
issued  for  some  time  a  steady  murmur,  and 
now,  evidently  with  a  change  of  place  on 
the  speaker's  part,  there  came  therefrom  a 
ringing  voice : 

"Open  that  dark  leather  one,  and  take 
out  the  top  tray.  Save  all  the  tissue  paper ; 
1  did  n't  bring  any  more,  and  I  may  pick 
up  any  time  and  get  out.  Lay  that  tray  on 
the  floor  and  open  that  trunk  yonder.  Get 
out  the  petticoats  in  it,  those  two  yellow 
silk  ones,  and  the  chiffon  ones.  Find  the 
slippers  and  stockings  to  match  them. 
Never  mind  my  hair ;  I  'm  tending  to  that. 
Open  that  box  and  hand  me  the  pins  in  it. 
Then  hand  me  that  powder-box — the  whole 
thing." 

Mrs.  Gresham  leaned  slightly  forward, 
her  whole  childish  body  tense.  She  was 

C743 


CLEM 

shamelessly  listening,  and  after  a  slight 
break,  the  voice  went  ringing  on : 

"Give  a  good  shake  to  those  skirts  and 
fluff  the  bottom  flounces.  You  're  Mrs. 
Wines's  maid?  I  won't  need  you  much; 
but  when  I  do,  I  want  you  on  the  run. 
Here,  take  this — here!  What?  My  good 
ness,  she  '11  never  know  unless  you  peach 
on  yourself — I  never  run  about  giving 
folks  away.  Have  you  got  those  things 
laced  yet?  I  '11  kill  Jeanne  for  putting 
them  in  without  strings.  Now  take  hold 
here  and  draw  up  the  third  string  first — 
now  put  your  hands  on  my  hips,  while  I 
Dull  these  strings  taut — " 

Dell  looked  about  her  with  much  satis 
faction  as  the  corner  cleared  magically, 
leaving  only  her  and  Lorimer  in  possession. 

"I  always  did  say  she  knew  how  to — 
dress !"  put  in  that  lady. 

"I  fear  the  unimpeccable  Rachel  has 
fallen,"  Lorimer  murmured  sadly,  with 
considerate  reverting  to  an  earlier  topic. 
"I  did  n't  hear  her  refuse  what  her  mis 
tress  hath  forbidden." 

U753 


CLEM 

"Rachel  has  that  gentle  voice  which  is 
woman's  chiefest  charm,"  Mrs.  Gresham 
replied  with  great  condonement  in  her  eyes. 
"That  's  one  of  Aunt  Frances'  feudal  fads 
anyway — nobody  forbids  it  now — so  don't 
you  run  about  giving  folks  away,  either. 
There  's  one  thing  I  like  about  that  girl," 
she  added,  picking  up  a  book  preparatory 
to  departure.  "If  I  were  her  sort,  mush 
room  growth,  you  know,  the  sight  of  Aunt 
Frances'  butler  would  give  me  heart  dis 
ease.  But  Forbes  will  not  move  this  lady, 
though  she  may  stir  him  out  of  his  steel 
riveted  calm.  If  he  does  quell  her,  I  '11  de 
part  on  the  next  train,  if  you  say,  and 
leave  my  baby  of  an  Eaton  to  her  clutches, 
if  she  wants  him.  But  Forbes  won't  scare 
her,  a  fact  which  argues  something  for  her 
— what,  I  don't  know.  I  'm  going  in  to 
plot  out  my  course  for  to-night.  It  's 
time  for  good  resolves — we  Ve  all  been 
nothing  but  piazza  cats  for  the  last  half 
hour." 

She  gathered  up  the  last  one  of  her  be 
longings  and  went  away.  Lorimer  re- 


CLEM 

moved  his  glasses  and  began  to  polish  them 
with  infinite  care.  As  he  adjusted  them, 
the  voice  above  rang  out  once  more : 

"Work  me  into  this  like  wax,  now.  No 
body  can  fool  with  this  dress.  Beautiful? 
Well,  it  ought  to  be !  That  's  right,  that  's 
the  idea.  I  don't  believe  you  've  whitened 
my  shoulders  far  enough  down.  I  told 
you  this  was  double  extra  low  cut.  I  know 
they  're  white  now,  but  it  's  warm  to-night 
— that  's  right.  Now  rub  it  in,  down  my 
back,  further  down  than  that.  When  I 
lean  over,  and  I  'm  liable  to  lean  any  way 
I  want  to—" 

At  which  late  stage  Mr.  Lorimer  fol 
lowed  an  example  which  he  might  have, 
with  credit,  emulated  before,  that  of  those 
Arabs  famed  in  song  and  story,  and  silently 
stole  away. 


VI 


MISS  MERRIT  kept  dinner  waiting  for 
some  little  time  past  the  dinner-hour, 
but  when  she  appeared,  the  sight  of  her 
was  worth  a  spoiled  entree  or  two.  Her 
dress  was  one  golden  shimmer  of  palest 
yellow  crepe,  with  one  dash  of  black,  so 
bold,  so  ringing,  that  only  an  artist's  mind 
could  have  conceived  it,  and  an  artist's 
hand  dared  place  it.  It  made  whiter 
her  perfect  shoulders,  bluer  her  eyes,  and 
her  hair  and  dress  more  gloriously  sunny. 

There  was  never  much  formality  about 
dinner  at  The  Pines,  but  Mrs.  Wines  raised 
her  eyebrows  at  Lorimer  when  the  much- 
tried  Forbes  at  length  announced  it,  and 
he  moved  obediently  toward  Clem  Merrit. 
That  young  woman  recognized  him  by  a 
slight  and  significant  flicker  of  her  eyelids, 
and  her  full  free  smile. 

"First  I  see  you,  and  then  I  don't/'  she 


CLEM 

remarked,  as  they  traversed  the  long  hall. 
"I  had  that  dance  with  you  down  yonder, 
and  the  next  I  see  of  you,  you  're  here. 
Some  of  these  people  I  know;  him,  and 
her — "  She  nodded  toward  several  with 
much  real  indifference,  and  held  out  a  cor 
dial  left  hand  to  Lowe,  who  emerged  at 
that  moment  from  the  library  and  joined 
the  procession  to  the  dining-room. 

"We  'd  meet  up  under  an  African  bam 
boo-tree,  would  n't  we!"  she  said  to  him 
gaily.  Then  she  turned  back  to  Lorimer. 

"I  owe  you  a  vote  of  thanks,"  she  re 
marked  easily.  "I  never  was  in  a  crowd  of 
this  kind  before,  and  I  doubt  if  I  'd  been 
here  to-night,  if  it  had  n't  been  for  that 
introduction  you  gave  me  to  her.  I  like 
to  mix  with  new  people — people  are  the 
only  things  worth  while,  anyway.  I  think 
it  's  going  to  be  great  sport.  Two  days 
you  've  been  here  ?  It  looks  like  I  'd  missed 
some  of  the  fun.  I  was  just  saying  to  Mr. 
Lorimer,"  she  added  to  the  entire  table,  as 
they  were  being  seated,  "that  I  was  down 
right  sorry  you  'd  all  beaten  me  here  by  a 

C79] 


CLEM 

day.  I  don't  see,  Reggie,  why  you  did  n't 
tip  me  off." 

She  smiled  gaily  down  at  the  boy,  and  he 
returned  an  answer  in  a  manner  cool 
enough  to  prove  himself,  for  every  eye  was 
turned  upon  him.  Then  her  eyes  fell  upon 
the  coldly  classic  features  of  Miss  Gran- 
tham,  and  she  nodded  at  her  airily. 

"He  knows  nothing  does  me  so  much 
good  as  turning  myself  loose  for  a  ripping 
good  time,  and  you  're  right  with  me.  I 
take  it,"  she  said. 

Farda  looked  up  in  shocked  amazement. 
Her  lips  moved  slightly;  then  a  burning 
wave  of  color  swept  over  her  face.  She 
choked  back  some  equally  heated  utterance, 
and  turned  deliberately  toward  Lowe,  who 
was  sitting  beside  her  with  a  half  smile  on 
his  face.  Clem  Merrit  stared  in  her  turn 
with  open  and  equally  great  astonishment. 
Then  she,  too,  turned  aside  with  equal  de 
liberation  and  far  more  coolness. 

"Was  that  a  facer?"  she  demanded 
under  cover  of  the  talk  which  rose  in  a 
swelling  surge  all  about  the  table.  To 

r.80] 


CLEM 

Lorimer's  fine  ear  there  seemed  nothing  in 
her  voice  but  frankly  amused  curiosity. 

"I  fancy,"  he  said  deliberately,  "that 
Miss  Grantham — " 

"You  're  excused,"  said  Miss  Merrit 
promptly.  "Good-night !" 

And  Lorimer  took  his  fall  with  a  laugh. 

Another  course  was  being  served.  Clem 
Merrit  fingered  the  array  of  silver  before 
her  with  indecision.  Then  she  shot  a  fur 
tive  glance  toward  Mrs.  Wines,  and,  as 
she  briskly  picked  up  a  fork,  she  met  Lori 
mer's  eyes.  Her  own  flickered  for  a 
second,  and  then  she  looked  back  at  him 
boldly. 

"Well,  yes,"  she  said  coolly.  "I  did  n't 
know  which  one,  and  I  don't  care  for  a 
bluff  myself,  unless  it  's  a  good  one. 
You  're  sharp." 

Lorimer  indulged  in  another  rare  laugh. 
"And  yet,"  he  added  after  a  pause,  "I 
doubt  not  that  you  can  put  up  a  bluff  when 
occasion  calls.  This  little  trifle — it  does  n't 
really  matter,  do  you  think  ?" 

"You    read    me    well,"    Clem    replied 

[Si] 


CLEM 

promptly.  "Yes,  when  the  pot  's  worth 
while  I  don't  stay  out  because  I  don't  stand 
pat  on  a  royal  flush."  She  flickered  her 
eyelids  at  him  again,  after  a  droll  fashion 
which  he  was  beginning  to  recognize. 

"All  the  same,"  she  resumed  after  an 
other  pause,  "don't  you  watch  me  too  close. 
I  'm  out  of  the  running  already,  outclassed 
or  underrated,  and  I  declare  to  goodness, 
I  don't  know  whether  your  sort  is  slower 
or  swifter." 

"No  doubt  we  have  among  us  here  one 
or  two  merely  average  plugs,"  returned 
Lorimer  cheerfully. 

"Is  that  a  facer,  too?"  asked  the  girl. 
"Well,  I  don't  care.  I  can  stand  a  man's 
come-back  any  day.  Women! —  And 
then,  you  see,  I  don't  call  myself  fast." 

Lorimer's  lips  parted  in  horrified  haste, 
but  the  girl  swept  cheerfully  on. 

"Oh,  shunt  all  that!"  she  said  with  her 
lovely  smile.  "I  don't  hole}  grudges.  And 
women  do  ordinarily  call  me  that.  Oh,  I 
know.  Men  don't,  because  men  know  me 
better.  Women  are  nasty  little  things, 

r.82] 


CLEM 

don't  you  think,  and  I  can't  be  judged  by 
the  general  run  of  them.  But,"  she  smiled 
charmingly  at  him,  "even  a  tortoise  is 
faster  than  some  animals." 

Meantime  Farda  turned  to  Lowe,  who 
was  watching  the  progress  of  affairs  across 
the  table  with  interested  absorption. 

"This  is  dreadful!"  she  murmured. 
"And  I  dare  say,  merely  because  I  say  so, 
you  '11  defend  everything  that  's  happened ; 
defend  it  to  the  last  ditch,  Jack.  Well, 
you  '11  soon  be  there,  that  's  one  comfort. 
Your  battling  will  be  short." 

"Oh,  not  in  the  least  because  you  say  so, 
my  dear  Farda,"  returned  Lowe  sooth 
ingly.  "I  am  never  moved  by  prejudice, 
as  I  endeavored  to  prove  to  you  some  hours 
back."  He  glanced  into  her  pale  face  and 
laughed  delightedly.  "Brace  up,  Farda. 
"You  '11  allow  this  feeling  to  carry  you  to 
lengths  before  long,  and  you  can  make  a 
good  guess,  can't  you,  as  to  which  side 
Mrs.  Wines  will  be  on !  So  don't  give  way, 
my  dear  girl,  in  heaven's  name !  There  '11 
be  enough,  without  that  sort  of  a  fiasco." 


CLEM 

He  settled  back  indifferently  under 
Farda's  disdainful  stare.  She  was  a  girl  of 
much  cold  brilliancy,  who  was  possessed  of 
much  intelligence  and  was  unhampered  by 
any  emotions,  being  a  pitiless  creature,  to 
herself  as  well  as  to  others.  Her  likes  were 
few,  and  her  dislikes  were  deep  and  lasting. 

A  few  moments  later  they  all  rose,  the 
men  with  the  women,  and  drifted  about 
the  rooms  and  the  verandas.  For  the  time 
being  Lorimer  placidly  disregarded  Reg 
gie's  manifest  attempt  to  corral  the  latest 
arrival,  and  remained  in  clear  possession 
of  his  new  acquaintance,  though  Reggie 
hovered  near  with  an  amount  of  cool  intent 
praiseworthy  in  one  so  young.  Half  an 
hour  later,  while  Reggie  still  lingered,  he 
heard  Clem  Merrit  answer  a  question 
whose  asking  had  frozen  his  blood. 

"Yes,  I  sing,"  she  said  calmly,  in  the 
full  hush  of  an  unaccountable  silence  which 
had  fallen  over  the  room.  "My  father  al 
ways  said  he  was  going  to  have  me  learn 
to  sing,  and  he  paid  double  rates  to  get  a 
big  Paris  teacher  to  take  me.  At  first  de 

C84H 


CLEM 

Marronville  said  he  would  n't  do  it  under 
any  circumstances,  but  my  father  fixed  it, 
and  I  studied  almost  a  whole  year.  He 
said  that  for  pure  strength  my  voice  was 
about  the  biggest  thing  he  ever — " 

Mrs.  Gresham  came  forward  quickly, 
her  eyes  shining  like  black  agates,  skilfully 
avoiding  Lorimer's  fixed  gaze. 

"Then  do  sing  for  us,  Miss  Merrit !"  she 
cried.  "Something— anything!"  She  would 
not  yet  meet  Lorimer's  eyes,  but  she  came 
dangerously  close  to  him,  and  across  the 
entire  length  of  the  room  she  called  to  Mrs. 
Wines,  whose  face  by  now  was  a  white 
mask. 

"Do  ask  her,  Aunt  Frances !"  she  called, 
with  a  daring  of  which  she  was  gleefully 
conscious. 

"Oh,  I  '11  be  glad  to,"  the  girl  said  calmly, 
turning  surprised  eyes  upon  the  insistent 
clamorer,  and  to  her  intense  gratitude  Mrs. 
Wines  realized  that  the  situation  was 
ended.  Nothing  could  help  or  hinder  now. 
Yet  she  flushed  painfully  under  a  look 
which  Reggie  flashed  at  her.  It  was  very 


CLEM 

clear  that  Reggie  excused  nothing  nor  any 
body  ;  that  he  was  passionately  angry. 

And  in  the  midst  of  byplay  and  side 
scene,  all  unconscious  thereof,  and  all 
unawed  by  the  silence  which  still  hung 
heavy  over  the  room,  Clem  Merrit  walked 
over  to  the  piano. 

"Most  of  my  songs  are  coon,"  she  said 
genially,  over  her  wonderful  shoulder. 
"But  I  '11  give  you  the  Jewel  Song — from 
'Faust,'  "  she  added  in  thoughtful  explana 
tion. 

It  was  her  entire  preliminary,  and  she 
dashed  into  the  aria  blithely. 

Lowe  had  edged  his  way  carefully 
around  the  room,  and  by  the  time  she 
ended,  had  contrived  to  displace  Lorimer  at 
the  piano.  In  the  pregnant  silence  which 
met  her  closing  notes,  he  bent  down  to  her. 
Reggie  had  given  up  the  chase  at  last,  and 
was  standing,  a  miserable  side-fixture, 
against  the  opposite  wall. 

"Bully!"  said  Lowe  in  the  entirely  tone 
less  voice  with  which  he  was  wont  to  ex 
press  his  greatest  pleasure.  "Now,  do  me 


CLEM 

a  favor;  sing  that  Georgia  coon  song  you 
used  to  sing  while  Denys  was  laying  on  his 
layers  of  paint — " 

She  laughed  in  frank  pleasure,  and  broke 
into  a  rollicking  coon  song.  By  all  stand 
ards  of  coon  song  literature  she  sang  the 
thing  rarely  well,  and  when  she  finished 
this  second  effort  there  was  liberal  applause 
—  from  the  men.  She  cast  a  quick,  invol 
untary  glance  over  her  shoulder,  and  her 
laughing  eyes  focused  themselves  on  Mrs. 
Wines's  face. 

Instantly  the  girl's  face  changed  expres 
sion  and  color.  What  she  had  seen  in  the 
elder  woman's  eyes  had  shocked  her.  She 
caught  her  lip  hard  between  her  teeth,  and 
then  she  rose,  so  abruptly  that  the  piano 
seat  was  knocked  headlong  to  the  floor. 

"No !"  she  said  curtly,  in  response  to  the 
insistent  requests,  always  from  the  men, 
for  more  songs. 

She  took  a  few  steps  b?ck  across  the 
room,  but  half  way  over  she  hesitated,  and 
finally  stopped,  for  a  second  isolated,  al 
though  a  fringe  of  curious  eyes  stared  at 


CLEM 

her,  and  half  a  dozen  people  stood  within 
reach  of  her  clenched  hands.  Her  lip  was 
still  caught  hard  between  her  teeth,  and 
her  mouth  was  twisted  and  distorted,  as  if 
she  were  suffering  physical  pain.  For  a 
second — which  was  longer  to  her  than 
many  burning  hours — no  one  stirred. 
Then,  from  the  far  end  of  the  room,  like 
a  young  prince,  sweeping  his  guests  to  the 
right  and  the  left  of  him,  Reggie  came 
imperiously,  straight  to  Clem. 

"The  moon  is  just  climbing  the  pines," 
he  said  defiantly.  "I  'm  going  to  take  you 
out  to  watch  it." 

As  he  touched  her  arm  a  look  of  pas 
sionate  gratitude  shone  in  her  eyes,  but  she 
turned  to  the  men  about  her  with  all  and 
more  of  her  old,  bold  gaiety. 

"Not  to-night,"  she  reiterated.  "This 
place  got  into  my  blood  driving  over  from 
the  station.  Come,  Reggie,  let  's  clear." 

They  swept  past  Lorimer,  past  Mrs. 
Wines,  pale  and  frozen,  past  Virginia  and 
Lowe,  and  stepped  through  a  long  window 
onto  the  stone-flagged  veranda  without. 


CLEM 

Another  moment,  and  the  night  swallowed 
them  up. 

A  little  later,  and  those  left  unceremo 
niously  behind  made  general  exodus  to  the 
verandas.  But  one  end,  the  entire  east 
side,  was  left,  by  tacit  consent,  for  those 
two  who  held  it  by  priority  of  occupation. 
The  shifting  shadows  showed  now  and 
then  the  silvery  gleaming  of  a  woman's 
dress;  sometimes  the  woman  herself  in 
misty  outline  against  the  great  pillars. 
And  all  through  the  evening's  talk  which 
followed,  both  Mrs.  Wines  and  Lorimer 
missed  one  great  thing,  the  sound  of  a  girl's 
rich,  strident  laugh.  It  did  not  ring  out 
once. 


VII 

IT  was  not  yet  six  o'clock  of  the  next 
morning  when  Lowe,  strolling  lazily 
through  the  dewy  grass,  saw  a  great  red 
rose  come  hurtling  through  the  air  toward 
him.  He  caught  it  in  his  hand,  and  looked 
in  the  direction  of  its  flight,  to  catch  sight 
of  Clem  Merrit's  bright  head  poised  within 
the  clambering  arms  of  an  old  rose-tree 
which  covered  a  summer-house. 

"When  did  your  alarm  clock  go  off?" 
he  asked  her,  coming  close  to  the  railing, 
and  resting  his  arms  upon  it. 

"It  was  Reggie's  fist,"  said  Clem.  "We 
thought  we  'd  go  walking,  and  then  found 
the  dew  was  so  heavy  that  he  's  gone  off  to 
the  stables  to  get  us  something  to  drive 
before  breakfast.  Won't  you  come  inside? 
There  's  a  bully  view  of  the  sea,  and  a 
seat,  such  as  it  is." 

"I  'm  satisfied,"  said  Lowe.  "I  adore  the 


CLEM 

curve  of  your  mouth  when  seen  at  just  this 
angle,  slightly  above  the  level  of  the  eye." 

"That  's  all  right,"  returned  the  girl, 
unmoved.  "You  'd  better  go  back  to  art 
and  stick  there.  You  may  be  a  fair  artist 
— they  say  so.  But  as  a  weather  man, 
you  're  on  the  blink.  What  's  the  good  of 
knocking  around  if  you  can't  sight  dirty 
weather  ahead  ?" 

Lowe's  light  lashes  flickered  heavily  two 
or  three  times. 

"'You  mean —  ?"  he  asked  politely. 

"That,  as  a  press  agent,  Jack,  you  're  a 
shine." 

His  face  held  its  impassive  presentment, 
but  far  back  in  his  eyes  she  beheld  the  light 
of  understanding,  and  she  leaped  at  it,  to 
drag  it  forth. 

"That  coon  song  stunt  did  n't  make  a 
hit  last  night,  did  it?"  she  asked  asser 
tively.  "What  's  the  matter  with  your 
friends,  Jack?  Don't  they  like  a  laugh?" 

"Did  n't  they  give  you  the  laugh?"  he 
asked.  "Did  n't  they  give  you  the  hand  ?" 

"They  gave  me  the  laugh  all  right,  I 


CLEM 

reckon,"  Clem  admitted  calmly.  "And  the 
hand  for  that  matter;  clap  out!  What  's 
the  matter  with  your  friends,  Jack? 
There  's  nothing  wrong  with  the  song. 
And  I  'm  not  more  than  three  laps  behind 
the  right  way  to  sing  it,  am  I  ?" 

"You  sing  it  perfectly,"  Lowe  uttered, 
with  the  finality  of  the  recognized  expert. 
"And  everybody  knows  it — " 

"No,  they  don't,"  said  Clem,  with  the 
utmost  impersonality.  "There  was  n't  a 
woman  there  that  knew  it.  You  men,  of 
course — " 

"You  are  doing  Dell  Gresham  a  cruel  in 
justice,"  Lowe  interrupted  gravely.  "Dell 
is  authority  on  stunts  of  all  sorts,  and  Dell 
appreciated  every  fine  point,  I  give  you  my 
word." 

"  I  'm  not  in  a  position  to  call  you  there," 
Clem  returned.  "I  did  n't  happen  to  see 
Mrs.  Gresham — "  She  stopped  and  her 
level  brows  came  together  in  a  somber 
frown.  Then  she  looked  squarely  into 
Lowe's  eyes. 

"I  see  myself  hitting  the  trail  for  town 


CLEM 

in  about  two  days,  Jack,"  she  said.  "This 
place  has  got  on  my  nerves  already.  I 
don't  seem  to  fancy  it." 

"Ah,  now,  don't,"  Lowe  begged. 
"When  it  's  really  a  delightful  place,  and 
considering  the  fact  that  it 's  been  so  many 
months  since  we  've  eaten  at  the  same 
table-" 

"Were  n't  they  jolly  luncheons!"  Clem 
interrupted,  with  eyes  brimming  with 
laughter.  "The  lovely  messes  that  little 
coon  of  Claude  Denys'  could  hand  out! 
And  to  eat  them  in  that  studio  of  his,  where 
everything  had  a  taste  of  turpentine  and 
oily  rag — you  had  no  business  there,  but 
you  used  to  run  in  every  morning!  And 
then  the  places  we  'd  drop  into  in  the  even 
ing,  you  and  Denys  and  sometimes  dad, 
and  I.  And  then,  always  if  dad  was  with 
us,  we  'd  go,  after  dinner,  to  some  of  those 
palaces,  and  watch  dad  play  baccarat.  Ah 
me,  I  love  to  see  dad  with  a  deck  of  cards 
in  his  hand,  just  before  the  deal.  Do  you 
remember  him,  Jack,  red  and  bulky,  with 
his  tie  just  a  little  twisted,  and  his  hat  on 

C93] 


CLEM 

the  back  of  his  head,  and  everybody  watch 
ing  him,  even  the  croupier ;  and  the  highest 
players  in  all  Paris  just  dropping  over,  one 
by  one,  to  take  a  hand  in  the  game  ?  Ah ! 
me,  it 's  nerve  I  love." 

"Where  's  'dad'  now?"  Lowe  asked,  his 
eyes  fastened  with  keen  interest  on  the 
girl's  flushing,  rippling  face. 

"Getting  ready  to  go  down  into  South 
America  and  take  a  hand  in  some  of  the 
revolutions,  so  that  he  can  get  into  a  few 
gold-mines  he  's  bought,"  she  replied  care 
lessly.  "Equador  's  all  tied  up,  and  Colom 
bia  's  worse.  He  's  got  the  rover's  fever 
again — that 's  all  that  's  the  matter.  He  's 
just  got  home  from  this  trip  round  the 
world  with  me — he  can't  waste  any  more 
time  sitting  still,  you  know,  or  just  having 
a  good  time.  He  's  got  to  go  work  again. 
This  is  the  biggest  gamble  he  's  gone  into 
yet,  for  it  takes  in  states  and  kings." 

"And  you?"  queried  Lowe.  There  was 
a  certain  note  in  his  voice  which  made  the 
girl  turn  on  him  quickly. 

"Don't  you  go  to  blaming  dad  for  leav- 

C94] 


CLEM 

ing-  me  behind  him,"  she  said  emphatically. 
"You  saw  him  down  at  the  beach  for  those 
few  days — you  could-  see  he  was  crazy  to 
get  out  into  God's  country  again.  He  'd 
take  me — but  I  won't  go.  He  's  been  too 
good  to  trek  about  with  me  all  this  time. 
Anyway,  I  don't  want  to  go." 

"But  my  God,  girl,  you  're  too — rich — 
to  Jive  alone !"  Lowe  protested. 

Clem  sunk  her  chin  into  her  hands  and 
stared  down  at  him. 

"Don't  let  my  money  bother  you  any 
more  than  it  does  me — and  you  won't  say 
that  sort  of  thing  again,"  she  said  slowly. 
"Say,  Jack,  how  do  you  come  to  be  hob 
nobbing  with  this  high-collared,  stiff-cor» 
seted  crowd?  You  would  n't  have  said 
that  to  me  two  years  ago,  in  Paris." 

Lowe  laughed  a  little.  "Paris  is  differ 
ent,"  he  said  lamely.  "American  girls  can 
do  anything  they  like — in  Paris — and  it  's 
simply  laid  to  Americanism !" 

"Well,  I  've  always  done  as  I  liked, 
you  know,"  Clem  replied  simply.  "And 
you  can  lay  it  all,  always,  to  me. 

C953 


CLEM 

What  's  the  good  of  life,  if  you  put  chains 
on  yourself?  That  's  why  I  think  I  'm 
going  to  trek  out  for  town  day  after  to 
morrow." 

"Don't!"  Lowe  said  again.  "It  would 
be  an  injustice  to — everybody,  if  you  do. 
You  don't  understand  these  people.  Stay 
on,  and  learn  them  a  little  better.  And  if 
you  are  n't  interested  in  that,  stay  on.  to 
let  them  know  you.  They  're  all  right;  an 
awfully  good  sort." 

"Usually  I  can  size  up  a  string  without 
being  held  by  the  hand,"  Clem  said,  after  a 
pause;  "but  this  yard  of  colts  gets  past  me. 
That  Grantham  girl  's  got  a  sweet,  fine 
nature,  Jack !  I  Ve  got  her  all  hung  up  on 
the  line !  Who  's  the  other  girl,  Virginia  ?" 

She  said  it  all  without  malice,  and  she 
laughed  without  malice. 

"Virginia  ?"  echoed  Lowe.  "She 's  a  nice 
little  thing;  cousin  of  Lorimer's  and  spe 
cial  pet  of  Mrs.  Wines's.  Never  mind  the 
women.  Let's  talk  about  Reggie.  You 
may  speak  freely  to  me,  Clem.  I  am  a  de 
pendable,  grand  fatherly  person." 

r.963 


CLEM 

"I  'm  not  talking  much  about  Reggie 
right  now,"  Clem  said  slowly;  "but,  so  far, 
he  seems  to  me  the  pick  of  this  bunch." 

"You  put  him  over  Lorimer !"  protested 
Lowe.  "And  Gresham !  And  me !" 

"That  Lorimer  is — what  is  he,  Jack? 
He  don't  play  ragtime,  anyway." 

Lowe  laughed.  "Why,  Lorimer  can  play 
ragtime,"  he  said  lightly.  "My  dear  Clem, 
Lorimer  likes  you — immensely.  Believe 
me.  You  made  your  distinct  hit  with  him, 
two  weeks  ago,  when  you  gave  us  our 
palm-reading  together — remember?  That 
was  an  inordinately  clever  stunt  you  put 
up  that  night.  I  should  n't  have  brought 
him  to  you  personally,  if  I  had  n't  felt  that 
I  was  doing  an  altruistic  thing — presenting 
two  distinctly  worth-while  people  to  each 
other — thereby  cutting  ice  both  ways.  You 
seemed  good  enough  pals  down  yonder  at 
the  shore;  and  here,  last  night — " 

"Oh,  he's  smooth,"  rejoined  Clem, 
somewhat  absently.  "Smooth  as  a  piece  of 
sash  ribbon;  the  sort  that  does  n't  get 
jolted  easy ;  that  can  get  into  a  cab  without 

C973 


CLEM 

having  to  go  back  after  his  hat;  that  can 
talk  right  along,  the  same  sort  of  conversa 
tion,  after  the  supper  bill's  hit  him  in  the 
eye !  He  's  that  sort,  all  right." 

Lowe  threw  back  his  head  and  roared, 
but  Clem  stared  down  into  his  face  soberly 
enough. 

"He  writes,  does  n't  he?"  she  added  ab 
ruptly.  "I  read  a  book  of  his  that  Reggie 
had.  It  was  all  about  this  lot  of  people 
— people  like  them.  Somehow — oh,  it  was 
good  stuff,  but  it  did  n't  seem  to  me  it  hit 
bottom — I  laid  it  to  the  sort  of  people  he  'd 
taken  hold  of  to  write  up,  the  sort  that 
would  die  if  they  had  to  live  in  deep  water; 
a  goldfish  crowd  it  was !  You  know,  Jack, 
I  love  an  Indian,  just  because  he  's  got  to 
have  all  outdoors  to  live  in  and  off  of. 
Reggie  and  I  talked  that  book  of  Drake 
Lorimer's  over  and  upside  down,  and  from 
left  to  right  and  back  again,  Reggie  stand 
ing  up  for  it — Reggie  's  only  part  Indian, 
you  know — a  great  lot  of  him  's  white 
man !  He  kept  saying  it  was  all  right ;  but 
he  banked  all  his  belief  on  what  the  critics 

r.98] 


CLEM 

said  about  the  Lorimer  book.  Every  time 
I  'd  say,  'But  the  man  has  n't  got  the  work 
ing-man's  standpoint !'  Reggie  would  stand 
right  up  on  both  his  feet  and  tell  me  that 
New  York  went  wild  over  it,  and  old 
Drake  had  'em  all  skinned  ten  miles !"  She 
laughed  a  little.  "Reggie's  a  good  friend, 
and  I  reckon  I  did  n't  do  Mr.  Lorimer  jus 
tice,  after  all;  for  if  he  has  n't  got  the 
working-man's  jargon  right,  he  certainly 
has  this  high-collared  set  put  down  in  black 
and  white.  I  can  see  that,  with  only  six 
o'clock  last  night  to  start  from.  I  'm  an 
Indian,  you  know,  Jack.  I  Ve  got  to  have 
a  lot  of  good,  clean  air  to  breathe,  or  I 
choke  up  and  want  to  kill  somebody." 

"Well,"  suggested  Lowe,  "vindicate  the 
Indian,  then,  to  the  white  man." 

Clem  retorted  promptly.  "Not  for  a 
minute !  After  all,  the  Indian  does  n't  need 
vindication.  He  's  got  his  own  code,  his 
own  laws  of  life,  and  if  he  lives  up  to  them, 
he  's  a  good  Indian,  and  has  plenty  of  buf 
falo  in  the  hunting-grounds  beyond.  I 
suppose  it  's  the  same  thing,  only  rarefied, 

C99] 


CLEM 

with  the  white  man.  I  don't  know.  I  Ve 
never  lived  with  white  men." 

She  smiled  down  at  last  into  his  heavy, 
kindly  face. 

"You  're  sort  of  different  from  the  rest 
of  'em  here,  Jack.  I  daresay  you  don't 
think  that  's  a  compliment;  perhaps  not. 
Is  it  living  in  that  queer  shack  of  yours, 
just  outside  of  Paris,  with  that  queer  gang 
you  had  about  you;  where  anything  you 
did  was  right,  and  nothing  counted  for 
wrong — unless  you  lied  to  a  woman,  or 
played  with  a  man  with  an  ace  up  your 
sleeve  ?" 

She  bent  down  to  him  at  last,  and  tapped 
his  cheek  lightly  with  her  hand. 

"Talk!"  she  said.  "Don't  moon  at  six 
o'clock  in  the  morning!" 

Lowe  smiled  up  at  her  queerly,  his  kind 
eyes  fixed  steadily  on  hers.  "I  'm  not  un 
shod,  Clem,"  he  replied  briefly.  "If  I  walk 
here  at  all,  it  is  of  your  mercy." 

He  paused  for  a  moment,  and  the  girl 
did  not  speak,  but  her  questioning  eyes 
were  compelling. 


CLEM 

"I  've  always  said  you  were  primitive," 
he  continued  cheerfully.  "Do  you  remem 
ber  that  'Eve'  I  showed  you  once,  of 
Rodin's,  while  Denys  was  painting  you — 
the  one  thing  you  liked  out  of  a  mass  of 
sculpture— and  you  did  n't  know  why? 
There  was  kinship  between  you — it  always 
typified  you  to  me.  Your  Indian  code  has 
served  you  well;  you  've  lived  it  uncon 
sciously;  you  've  followed  instinct,  where 
the  rest  of  us  tentatively  follow  reason; 
and  you  've  walked  gloriously  all  your 
years.  But — " 

"But — "  repeated  the  girl  imperiously. 
Her  eyes  had  never  wavered  from  his. 

"But,"  Lowe  went  on,  slowly,  yet  with 
no  manner  of  hesitation,  "it  's  not  in  you 
to  run  away  from  any  part  of  life,  Clem. 
Good  or  bad,  you  've  never  thrown  down  a 
hand  yet.  Whether  you  've  liked  the  cards 
or  not,  you  've  played  them — magnifi 
cently—" 

He  saw  that  she  was  reading  all  things 
into  his  words,  and  he  stopped,  wondering 
that  he  had  dared  to  say  so  much.  She 


CLEM 

sat,  with  her  chin  in  her  hand,  looking  far 
away  into  the  blue  sky  overhead. 

"He  was  the  artist  who  said  Eve's  little 
ringer  did  n't  matter,  after  he  found  the 
workmen  had  broken  the  plaster  finger  off, 
and  cast  the  bronze  without  knowing  it — I 
remember  you  told  me  all  about  that.  It 
was  one  of  the  finest,  bravest  things  I  ever 
heard."  She  laid  both  her  hands  out  along 
the  railing  and  looked  at  them  with  a 
curious  smile. 

Lowe  followed  her  eyes  and  smiled 
broadly.  "Well,  did  it?"  he  asked.  "Be 
side  the  breadth  of  the  whole ;  its  splendid 
lines,  its  great  life  and  greater  spirit? 
Was  n't  criticism  of  that  insignificant  lack 
puerile  and  finicky  ?" 

"Finicky !"  she  repeated.  Her  eyes  dark 
ened  slightly,  and  her  lips  curved  scorn 
fully,  but  she  looked  at  him  at  last  with 
eyes  that  laughed  beneath  their  flickering 
lids. 

"It  's  a  good  thing  that  I  still  have  in 
stinct — to  tell  me  what  a  glorious  liar  you 
are,  Jack,"  she  said.  "Well,  I  'm  glad  I  Ve 

[102] 


CLEM 

met  you  down  here,  in  this  gang  of  your 
own  sort,  because  you  show  up  almost  more 
of  a  man  in  it  than  you  do  out  of  it.  Be 
cause  I  like  courage,  and  it  takes  it — to  be 
different — here !" 

"You  're  not  going  away — really?" 
Lowe  asked  her  quickly,  caught  by  a  cer 
tain  final  note  in  her  voice. 

"Oh,  I  don't  know,"  Clem  retorted  care 
lessly.  "The  Wessons — do  you  know  the 
Wessons? — racing  people? — want  me 
down  on  their  Long  Island  place  for  this 
month.  They  'd  be  tickled  to  death  if  I 
wired  them  that  I  'd  be  there  to-morrow 
night  for  dinner!" 

She  glanced  at  him  from  under  heavy  lids 
as  he  stood  with  folded  arms  and  frowning 
brow,  staring  at  the  ground,  and  some 
thing  in  his  face  made  her  add  quickly : 

"Don't  you  ever  think  I  '11  be  throwing 
up  the  game,  if  I  do !  I  Ve  got  a  cold  deal, 
and  it  's  the  best  way  to  play  my  hand. 
Take  my  word  for  that!"  She  laughed 
rather  loudly  and  with  a  touch  of  bitter 
ness.  Finally,  she  tapped  his  cheek  again. 


CLEM 

"Your  conversation  this  morning  moves 
as  easy  as  a  cab  horse  on  ,a  sand  track," 
she  said.  "You  're  the  champion  rapid  fire 
conversationalist !" 

Lowe  caught  hold  of  her  hand.  "I  know 
those  Wessons,"  he  said  jerkily,  "and 
their  crowd.  They  're  not  your  level, 
Clem." 

"I  had  a  good  time  there  two  months 
ago,"  the  girl  said  lightly.  "I  met  them  on 
the  boat,  coming  over.  That  's  the  way  I 
meet  most  of  the  people  I  know — on  the 
boat — coming  over!  I  went  right  down 
with  them,  dad  and  I,  and  we  had  a  good 
time.  Nothing  matters  there,  either,  what 
ever  you  do.  Nobody  cares.  They  're  a 
good  enough  sort." 

"They  're  not  your  level,"  Lowe  repeated 
stubbornly.  The  second  repetition  of  the 
words  seemed  to  goad  her  into  swift 
speech. 

"I  've  got  no  level — have  n't  had  for  two 
years — not  since  I  had  that  picture  painted, 
and  sat  there  morning  after  morning,  hear 
ing  you  and  Claude  Denys  talk  and  smoke 


CLEM 

by  the  hour.  I  went  to  him  because  he  was 
the  fashion,  because  my  father  wanted  a 
portrait  of  me,  and  whenever  you  said 
portrait  in  Paris,  somebody  at  your  elbow, 
did  n't  matter  where  you  were,  said 
'Denys!'  Well,  he  took  me,  and  painted 
me,  and  I  sat  there  and  heard  him  tell  you 
about  turning  down  this  Lady  So-and-so, 
and  this  Duchess  of  That,  and  this  Mrs. 
Kerosene  Somebody  from  Toledo,  and  all 
his  reasons  why.  And  I  used  to  sit  there, 
wondering  why  he  *d  taken  me — since  I 
was  n't  the  duchess,  and  was  n't  near  the 
beauty  that  she  was,  and  since  he  'd  turned 
down  a  woman  whose  husband  was  full  as 
rich  as  my  father.  I  never  quite  found 
out,  and  I  stumbled  through  a  lot  of  col 
umns  of  rot  that  the  art  critics  wrote  of 
The  Woman  in  Blue !'  Most  of  them  said 
the  work  was  superfine — what  they  said  of 
Denys  was  all  right,  but  I  did  n't  take  to 
what  they  said  of  me,  the  things  they  said 
he  'd  done  with  me.  They  seemed  to  talk 
me  over  considerable.  You  know  what 
they  said,  the  sort  of  woman  a  lot  of  them 


CLEM 

surmised  I  was.  They  did  n't  agree,  by  a 
long  ways,  but  none  of  it  was  very  flatter 
ing — it  started  me  to  thinking,  and  I  've 
never  stopped.  Though  the  thinking 
did  n't  bother  me  a  bit— till  this  summer. 
Since  then — I  've  got  no  level,  Jack.  You 
know  it.  You  know  it!" 

She  had  been  speaking  almost  inaudibly, 
but  with  her  last  words  her  voice  rose.  She 
seemed  at  last  to  realize  that  Lowe  still 
held  her  hand,  and  she  tried  to  wrench  it 
from  him.  But  he  held  it  persistently. 

"A  big  point  of  view  is  the  rarest  thing 
in  the  world,  Clem,"  he  said  serenely. 
"Don't  let  motes  hide  it." 

Her  frown  grew  deeper,  and  her  lips 
tightened  as  she  looked  into  his  steady, 
kindly  eyes.  Suddenly  she  dragged  her 
hands  free. 

"Reggie  's  calling,"  she  muttered.  "He 
ought  to  have  been  here  half  an  hour  ago !" 

She  sprang  to  her  feet,  without  any 
other  word  of  farewell,  and  walked  swiftly 
over  to  where  Reggie  waited  for  her  in  his 
motor-car.  Lowe  continued  to  stare  after 


CLEM 

her  as  she  placed  herself  in  the  driver's 
seat,  displacing  her  young  host  without 
apology,  and  he  gazed  after  the  car  until 
it  lost  itself  in  the  curving  roadway.  Then 
he  took  up  a  slow  stroll  back  to  the  house, 
with  his  hands  clasped  behind  him,  whist 
ling  a  monotonous  roundelay  whose  words 
relate  to  an  animal  fair  where  birds  and 
beasts  congregate,  and  deal  especially  with 
the  vissicitudes  befalling  an  elephant  and 
a  monkey.  This  particular  melo.dy  always 
denoted  a  certain  state  of  Lowe's  mind  to 
intimate  listeners,  and  he  came  up  the  steps 
of  the  house  to  find  Dell  Gresham  waiting 
for  him  with  hands  uplifted. 

"Heaven  fend  us!"  she  murmured 
piously,  "that  you  start  this  glorious  day 
— so!  What  is  the  trouble?  And  may  I 
be  permitted  to  help  in  any  way,  however 
mean  and  small  ?" 

"Good  old  Dell !"  Lowe  answered  gladly. 
He  broke  off  his  roundelay  abruptly,  and 
pulled  down  the  lady's  upheld  hands. 
"Dell,  I  want  you  to  do  me  a  great  favor ; 
something  that  it  not  only  takes  a  woman 


CLEM 

to  do,  but  a  woman  of  great  social  expe 
rience  and  instinctive  tact — " 

"My  lord!"  murmured  Mrs.  Gresham, 
with  a  thankful  courtesy. 

"And  this  is  it,"  Lowe  went  on,  with  the 
imperviousness  of  a  raincoat.  "For  God's 
sake,  take  hold  of  things !  My  word  for 
it,  there  's  gold  lying  loose  in  this  merry 
little  group,  and  Dell,  you  've  got  a  touch 
stone  that  ought  to  find  it.  And  a  woman's 
friendship  means  so  cursedly  much  more 
than  a  man's  can,  sometimes.  It  can  build 
up,  sometimes,  where  a  man's  can  only 
destroy.  Be  a  good  fellow,  old  girl." 

"I  suppose  I  could  n't  have  helped — last 
night's  break,  but  I  'm  perfectly  certain  I 
did  n't  try,"  Dell  confessed,  with  a  charm 
ing  air  of  penitence. 

"Make  'em  all  play  up !  You  've  got  the 
faculty!"  growled  Lowe,  as  he  followed 
her  toward  the  breakfast-room.  Mrs. 
Gresham  turned  on  him  quickly. 

"I  can !  I  have !"  she  said.  Her  thought 
was  growing  in  her  brain.  "I  wonder," 


CLEM 

she  emitted  at  length,  "what  might  be  made 
of  that  girl,  with  the  proper — " 

Lowe  ambled  quickly  to  her  side  with 
his  characteristic  gait,  a  certain  give  at  the 
ankles  like  that  of  a  camel  in  its  native 
sands,  but  possessed  of  a  natural  litheness 
which  gave  his  awkwardness  grace.  He 
raised  his  hands  devoutly. 

"Never!"  he  said  in  a  tone  which  ad 
mitted  of  no  appeal.  "This  is  no  part  of 
any  uplift  movement,  Dell.  I  refuse  to  be 
a  party  to  any  such  trashy  game.  When 
mortals  condescend  to  mortals,  then  truly 
do  the  gods  weep!" 

He  paused  as  they  reached  the  door,  and 
held  her  back  for  a  moment.  "I  shall 
dare,"  he  said  whimsically,  "to  remind  you 
of  this  great  axiom  of  the  studios:  There 
are  certain  things  which  should  never  be 
finished;  the  freshness  of  first  lines,  the 
bloom  of  the  sketch,  should  be  left  on 
them  forever!" 

He  watched  her  furtively  as  Clem  and 
Reggie  came  in,  almost  an  hour  later,  wind- 


CLEM 

blown  and  laughing,  from  their  swift 
morning  flight,  and  his  brow  cleared  as  he 
noted  the  manner  with  which  she  drew  the 
girl  into  a  chair  beside  her,  and  began  to 
talk  to  her  with  that  rattling  fluency  which 
was  Dell's  at  all  times.  Clem  rose  to  it, 
and,  thanks  to  the  ozone  of  the  morning 
and  of  Dell  Gresham's  vitality,  her  poise 
was  unbroken  by  Mrs.  Wines's  appearance, 
and  the  almost  oppressive  cordiality  of  that 
lady's  morning  greetings.  Lowe,  watching 
Clem  with  an  interest  whose  genuineness 
excused  it,  was  uncertain  as  to  how  much, 
after  all,  she  had  really  perceived  of  the 
situation  into  which  they  were  all  plunged, 
so  thoroughly  natural  did  .she  seem,  and  so 
thoroughly  at  her  ease. 


VIII 

THAT  first  unfortunate  evening  struck 
hardly  the  correct  keynote  of  the  week 
which  followed,  and  yet  it  echoed  through 
most  of  the  days  which  came  after;  for 
Clem  Merrit,  that  is  to  say. 

For  she  had  caught  the  jangling  note, 
even  so  early,  and  neither  the  assiduous 
courtesies  of  her  hostess  and  her  fellow- 
guests,  nor  the  outright,  downright  devo 
tion  of  her  young  host  himself,  could  dull 
her  ears  or  shut  her  clear-seeing  eyes.  She 
had  taken  Mrs.  Wines's  invitation  to  The 
Pines  for  what  it  seemed:  an  honest,  im 
pulsive  desire  for  her  company;  and  she 
had  accepted  in  that  spirit  precisely.  She 
admired  Reggie's  mother  tremendously, 
with  a  species  of  infatuated  adoration  at 
which  she  herself  laughed ;  had  so  admired 
her  through  the  first  three  weeks  of  her  and 
Reggie  Wines's  tropical  friendship.  She 


CLEM 

had  never,  in  all  her  untamed,  wandering 
life,  come  into  personal  contact  with  such 
a  woman,  and  her  delight  at  Mrs.  Wines's 
seemingly  instantaneous  response  to  her 
adoration  was  naive  and  bubbling.  But 
even  so  early  was  her  warm  heart  chilled. 
Mrs.  Wines's  face,  as  Clem  turned  from 
the  piano  that  night  and  looked  upon  it — 
Clem  Merrit  could  not  forget  it.  It  held 
more  than  Mrs.  Wines  dreamed  of  her  real 
feeling,  and  the  girl,  interpreting  dimly 
and  uncertainly,  felt  only  bewilderment. 

As  Farda  Grantham  had  carefully 
pointed  out,  the  party  was  small.  Conse 
quently  it  was  impossible  for  Clem  not  to 
see  much  of  them  all.  She  listened  in  a 
sort  of  mental  daze  to  the  talk  which  went 
on  about  her,  diamond-bright;  diamond- 
hard,  it  seemed  to  her  sometimes;  of  peo 
ple,  events,  arts  and  varied  crafts,  whose 
terminology  was  all  but  Greek  to  her,  and 
yet  whose  drift  she  shrewdly  caught. 
Sometimes  she  felt  all  but  smothered  in  the 
webs  of  verbal  finesse  which  this  sort  of 
people  wound  skilfully,  delightfully,  yet  so 


CLEM 

futilely  it  seemed  to  her,  about  trivial  hap 
penings  and  worse  than  trivial  emotions. 
No  motive  seemed  simple  any  longer; 
double  after  double  was  presented  to  fleet 
ing  view,  and  was  then  buried  beneath 
some  light  shaft  of  wit  as  an  inconsequent 
thing,  over  which  it  was  absurd  to  spend 
further  time.  In  this  estimate  she  did  the 
table  and  veranda  talk  at  The  Pines  some 
injustice.  It  was  not  superficial  talk,  because 
it  touched  hidden  depths  more  often  than 
the  girl  recognized;  but  it  was  subtle  and 
polished,  filled  with  brilliant  hiatus  so  ob 
vious  to  this  little  group  of  friends,  that 
they  honestly  did  not  perceive  its  unintelli- 
gibility  to  an  outsider. 

From  it  all,  time  and  again,  Reggie  res 
cued  her.  They  rode  and  drove  and 
walked,  spending  hours  of  each  day  apart 
from  all  the  others,  and  no  one  said  them 
nay.  Both  Lowe  and  Lorimer  were  atten 
tive  and  interested,  but  for  a  day  or  two 
she  saw  but  little  of  them.  After  that,  in 
what  manner  Reggie  hardly  knew,  his 
hours  and  hers  alone  together  were  swiftly 


CLEM 

shortened.  She  played  golf  with  Lowe, 
tennis  with  Lorimer,  took  advantage  of 
Dell's  openly  proffered  friendship  to  ex 
change  vivid  experiences,  and  she  treated 
Reggie's  confused  and  growing  misery 
with  careless  ease.  For  more  and  more,  as 
the  days  went  on,  did  the  boy  become 
sorely  troubled.  Something  in  their  world 
had  shifted;  they  looked  at  each  other  with 
new  eyes  which  did  not  seem  their  own. 
The  deep,  dark  pine-groves  seemed  peopled 
to  him,  alone  with  her,  as  the  crowded 
driveways  at  that  crowded  summer  resort 
had  not  been.  And  yet  she  herself  was  so 
nearly  the  same  that  he  could  put  a  decisive 
finger  on  nothing  definite — the  point 
wherein  lay  the  entire  secret  of  his  misery. 

This  week,  for  a  first  week,  had  been  as 
tonishingly  quiet,  considering  that  several 
congenial  neighboring  families  were  es 
tablished  for  the  summer.  Dell  Gresham 
knew  excellently  well  that  her  aunt  had 
planned  it  so,  but  she  woke  the  morning  of 
the  fourth  day  to  find  herself  resenting  it. 

"I  'm  going  to  be  a  promoter,"  she  said 


CLEM 

enigmatically  to  Gresham,  as  they  went 
down  to  breakfast ;  and  she  refused  to  elu 
cidate  save  by  her  actions,  which,  within 
the  next  few  hours  had  contrived  to  be  all 
but  revolutionary.  Both  Lorimer  and 
Lowe  observed  with  ill-concealed  interest 
Dell's  clever  baiting  of  her  aunt,  which  re 
sulted  in  telephoned  invitations  to  the 
Goodwins  and  the  Effingers  and  the  Hous- 
mans  before  noon,  for  an  informal  gather 
ing  that  night. 

It  was  on  the  afternoon  of  that  same  day 
that  Clem  Merrit  sat  at  ease  on  some  side 
steps,  alone,  with  her  white  skirts  sweeping 
carelessly  about  her  feet,  and  her  broad- 
brimmed  sailor  hat  tipped  low  over  her 
eyes.  She  had  been  on  the  links  for  an 
hour,  practising  in  solitude  a  bit  of  fine 
play  which  Lowe  had  demonstrated  that 
morning,  to  her  defeat.  By  and  by  the 
Greshams  and  Farda  and  Lowe  came  out, 
and  Clem,  seeing  them  approaching,  ended 
her  solitary  play. 

"No,  thanks,"  she  said  to  their  invitation 
to  go  around.  "I  've  been  tramping  these 


CLEM 

grounds  all  day.  No,"  she  added  to  Lowe, 
who  lingered  by  her. 

"Come,"  he  persisted.  But  she  shook 
her  head  firmly,  and  retreated  to  the  steps. 

Therefore  was  she  sitting  in  solitude 
here.  As  she  stared  before  her,  the  human 
figures  faded  from  her  view,  and  her  eyes 
grew  vacant  as  their  sparkle  died.  She 
was  thinking,  thinking. 

Clem  Merrit  herself  was  elemental, 
singularly  free  from  subtleties  and  quib- 
blings  and  ambiguities,  but  the  taint  of 
suspicion  was  working  in  her  now,  irresist 
ibly.  These  people,  of  what  sort  were 
they?  The  Greshams  she  honestly  liked; 
in  her  terminology  they  were  jolly  and 
rode  straight.  Farda  Grantham  she  smiled 
over  with  spontaneous  amusement,  for  the 
girl's  manner  struck  her  as  decidedly  hu 
morous.  Lowe  she  pronounced  jolly  and 
straight  also ;  of  a  piece  with  the  Greshams, 
and  still  a  worthy  member  of  that  Parisian 
group  into  which  she  had  stepped  for  a  few 
brief  weeks.  Lorimer — she  shook  her  head 
with  an  involuntary  little  shiver,  and  her 


CLEM 

eyes  darkened  with  the  stab  of  a  memory — 
a  memory  of  that  salad  course  at  that  first 
dinner,  and  her  intercepted  glance  at  her 
hostess.  It  was  hardly  mortification  that 
she  felt  now;  it  had  been  a  far  cry  from 
mortification  that  she  felt  then.  But  that 
little  incident  stood  out,  suddenly  alive  with 
meaning,  from  all  the  hours  crowded  full 
of  incidents,  many  of  them  similar.  And 
shoulder  to  shoulder  with  that  memory 
came  the  other  one:  of  Mrs.  Wines's  face 
later  that  same  evening,  after  the  singing 
of  that  topical  song! 

Clem's  face  darkened;  for,  if  she  had 
not  yet  shown  the  possession  of  that  swift 
perceptiveness  which  is  the  foundation  of 
culture,  she  had  the  instinct  of  the  wild  for 
insincerity;  and  the  sight  of  Mrs.  Wines's 
proud,  pained  face  had  told  her,  that  first 
night,  that  she  had  been  deceived;  that  it 
was  not  because  of  a  personal  liking  for 
her  that  Reggie's  mother  had  asked  her 
here.  Reggie — ah,  Reggie  was  straight 
and  loyal— yet!  He  was  born  honest  and 
sincere,  and,  after  her  own  peculiar  fash- 


CLEM 

ion,  that  other  girl  was  honest,  that  little 
cousin  of  Drake  Lorimer's,  who  lived  with, 
and  was  loved  by,  Reggie's  mother — 

Clem  turned  at  the  sound  of  footsteps 
behind  her,  to  see  Virginia  Garnet  coming 
toward  her  with  a  sketching-board  under 
her  arm,  and  a  box  of  water-colors.  As 
she  saw  Clem,  the  younger  girl  hesitated 
perceptibly.  Clem  continued  to  tap  her 
foot  in  rhythmic  time  against  the  step, 
while  she  looked  reflectively  upon  this  girl, 
pale  and  saintish,  another  type  from  this 
new  world  of  types;  the  sort  of  girl  that 
Mrs.  Wines  could  love  so  tenderly — 

"Hello!"  Clem  broke  into  her  own 
thoughts  so.  "Going  out  yonder  ?" 

Virginia  hesitated  still.  "No,  I  played 
this  morning.  I  was  going  to  do  a  mono 
chrome  from  the  Point.  The  whole  day  is 
so  heavenly  blue." 

There  followed  a  pause,  during  which 
Clem  continued  to  gaze  reflectively,  while 
Virginia  battled  with  a  strong  distaste  for 
obedience  to  the  mandates  of  hospitality; 
but  she  spoke  sweetly  at  last : 


CLEM 

"Won't  you  come  out  with  me  ?  Every 
body  seems  asleep,  or  busy." 

Clem  sat  silent  for  a  moment;  then  she 
swung  leisurely  to  her  feet.  "Yes,  I  '11 
come,"  she  said.  "Not  because  every 
body  's  asleep  or  busy — because  I  can  go  to 
sleep  myself,  or  get  busy.  I  '11  just  come." 

Virginia  felt  somewhat  puzzled;  her 
kindliness  had  seemed  to  her  so  sincere 
that  she  was  not  aware  of  the  slight  pa 
tronage  lurking  in  it,  and  it  never  occurred 
to  her  that  Clem's  words  were  a  good- 
natured  flinging  back  of  the  unasked-for 
commodity.  Silence  fell  between  them  as 
they  started  down  the  road,  a  silence  of 
which  Virginia  was  uncomfortably  con 
scious.  Clem  was  entirely  oblivious  to  it, 
for  little  memories  were  springing  up  in 
her  mind  this  afternoon,  and  distracting  it. 
Yet  suddenly  she  laughed. 

"Oh,  nothing,"  she  said  lightly,  in  reply 
to  Virginia's  surprised  inquiry.  "You  just 
have  a  queer  collection  back  yonder  under 
that  roof ;  a  queer  lot,  that  's  all." 

Virginia's  face  expressed  doubt  and  dis- 


CLEM 

taste.  "We  all  like  each  other  very  much," 
she  said,  with  a  bit  of  dignity,  "and  we 
understand  each  other." 

"All  of  you?"  asked  Clem  humorously. 
"Some  of  you  are  n't  so  easy  to  under 
stand,  you  know." 

The  younger  girl  flushed  slightly  under 
the  mild  fling,  but  she  volunteered  no  an 
swer,  and  in  silence  chose  the  spot  for  their 
lounging  and  her  sketching.  Clem  flung 
herself  down  on  the  sand,  and  stretched 
herself  along  it  as  gracefully  and  lithely  as 
a  cat. 

"How  old  are  you?"  she  asked  Virginia 
abruptly. 

Virginia  glanced  up  in  surprise.  "I  'm 
twenty  years  old,"  she  answered  briefly. 

For  a  few  moments  Clem  watched  the 
swift  strokes  of  the  brush  in  silence.  Then 
she  spoke  with  immense  energy : 

"What  have  you  done  all  your  life?" 

Again  Virginia  looked  up  in  almost  cold 
amazement,  but  Clem  brushed  such  con 
ventional  emotions  ruthlessly  aside. 

"I   mean   it,"   she   said   brusquely.      "I 


CLEM 

was  n't  brought  up  with  girls — I  don't 
know  anything  about  any  sort  of  girls,  let 
alone  your  sort.  I  want  to  know  what 
you  've  been  doing  all  your  life,  all  these 
twenty  years ;  how  you  've  lived." 

"That  's  a  very  hard  question  to  answer 
off-hand,"  Virginia  replied,  almost  child 
ishly.  "I  have  n't  done  anything  but  what 
all  girls  do :  go  to  school,  and  study  music 
and  art,  and  travel.  I  studied  art  in  Paris 
one  year — last  year — because  it  took  me 
that  long  over  there  to  find  out  that  my 
drawing  is  very  bad.  It  's  queer  I  had  to 
go  over  to  Paris,  and  stay  there  that  long 
to  learn  that  one  thing." 

Clem  commented  dryly :  "I  don't  know 
about  that.  I  daresay  a  lot  of  us  have  to 
go  a  long  way  to  learn  lots  of  things.  I  'm 
twenty-six,"  she  added,  with  a  tardy  rec 
ognition  of  the  confidence  which  had  just 
been  granted  her. 

"But,"  she  continued  energetically, 
"after  all,  what  have  you  done?  Where 
have  you  lived?  What — "  She  stopped. 

Virginia  raised  her  eyes  to  her  ques- 


CLEM 

tioner.  "I  don't  know  what  you  want  to 
find  out  about  me,"  she  said  directly.  And 
that  directness,  even  with  its  implied  re 
serve,  appealed  strongly  to  Clem  Merrit. 

"Look  here,"  she  said  impulsively.  "I 
want  to  know  how  a  girl  of  your  sort  does 
live;  what  she  does,  how  she  fills  in  her 
time — I  was  n't  brought  up  your  way,  you 
know.  I  never  have  learned  much  about 
women,  and  I  'm  free  to  say  that  till  lately 
most  of  them  seemed  pretty  cheap  affairs. 
Perhaps  that 's  because  I  've  never  met  just 
your  lovely,  fluffy  sort  before.  And  then, 
of  course,  women  don't  care  for  me,  hardly 
ever;  and  I  don't  care  for  that,  either." 

Virginia  began  to  answer  slowly,  reluc 
tantly.  She  did  not  know  this  girl,  and  did 
not  want  to  know  her.  Yet  Drake  had 
asked  her  to  be  cordial,  and  she  cared  much 
for  her  cousin  Drake.  And  Reggie  had 
commanded  her  to  be  decent,  in  a  manner 
which  compelled  obedience.  Therefore  she 
began  to  speak  earnestly,  dutifully,  but 
with  some  aimlessness. 

"My  father  is  in  Japan  now,"  she  said. 


CLEM 

"He  is  interested  in  collecting  weapons; 
that  is  why  he  is  there.  When  I  did  not 
want  to  go  back  to  Paris  this  winter  to  the 
school  there,  which  was  what  my  father 
expected  me  to  do,  he  was  very  much  wor 
ried  to  know  what  to  do  with  me,  and  Mrs. 
Wines  asked  him  to  let  me  stay  with  her. 
Reggie  is  in  school,  you  know,  and  she  is 
very  lonely.  It  has  all  been  just  school  and 
French-conversation  classes,  and  dancing- 
class,  and  art  school  and  Paris."  She 
stopped  breathlessly. 

"And  now — here!"  uttered  Clem  elo 
quently.  She  leaned  further  back,  and 
watched  the  girl  as  she  bent  studiously  over 
her  work.  Suddenly  she  laid  one  strong 
finger  on  the  drawing. 

"What  did  you  call  this?"  she  asked. 

"This  is  just  a  sketch,"  Virginia  replied 
uncertainly. 

"But  you  called  it  something,"  Clem  in 
sisted  lazily.  "You  said  you  were  going  to 
do  something  from  the  Point." 

"A  monochrome,"  said  Virginia.  She 
glanced  up,  and  what  she  saw  in  Clem  Mer- 

CI23] 


CLEM 

rit's  face  made  her  add  in  sweet  pedantry, 
"A  sketch  in  one  color." 

Another  silence  fell.  Clem  lay  far  back, 
watching  intently  the  face  near  her.  She 
had  never  hungered  after  anything  in  all 
her  life,  material  or  spiritual.  She  had 
played  without  protest  whatever  hand  had 
been  dealt  her.  What  the  gods  had  given 
she  had  taken.  What  they  had  withheld 
she  had  not  begged  for.  What  they  might 
snatch  away  she  had  let  go  with  a  laugh 
—until  this  week.  This  new  hunger  which 
gnawed  within  her  was  indefinite,  inchoate, 
purely  rudimentary.  But  she  had  caught 
glimpses  of  other  planes  of  thought  and 
action,  and  this  afternoon,  as  she  watched 
and  listened,  there  came  upon  her  the  first 
stir  of  an  embryonic  ideal,  and  it  sickened 
her  as  it  quickened.  She  could  not  speak, 
so  great  was  her  mental  daze ;  she  only  lay 
there,  staring  with  wide  eyes  which  she 
dared  not  close. 

Virginia  began  to  speak  again,  restlessly, 
with  determined  civility: 

"I  am  studying  art  just  because  I  love  it. 


CLEM 

My  mother  was  a  sister  of  my  cousin 
Drake's  father — there  is  where  I  get  my 
love  for  it,  they  say.  Drake's  father  was 
a  man  of  very  great  talent.  He  wanted 
Drake  to  be  an  artist.  But  Reggie's  father 
saw  that  Drake  would  be  only  merely  good 
at  that,  and  he  helped  my  uncle  to  give  up 
his  particular  ambition  for  Drake.  Dr. 
Wines  was  a  very  great  man.  It  seems 
queer  that  Reggie  is  so  different  from  both 
his  mother  and  his  father.  He  and  Drake 
are  great  chums.  He  is  going  into  Wall 
Street,  he  says,  and  Drake  laughs  at  him. 
Reggie  and  I  are  just  the  same  age." 

She  paused;  to  begin  again  with  the 
same  effect  of  resolute  entertaining. 

"Farda  Grantham  and  I  went  abroad  to 
gether.  She  studied  music.  We  stayed  at 
Madame  Vallormes's  school.  The  girls 
there  used  to  amuse  themselves  by  teaching 
the  American  girls  the  French  V.  Some 
times  I  can  say  it  by  itself  now,  but  never 
in  a  word.  Dell  laughs  at  me  because  I 
say  I  am  going  to  study  art  always,  and  so 
does  Drake,  and  so  does  Reggie.  Dell  and  * 


CLEM 

her  husband  are  great  travelers.  They 
lived  in  Japan  for  a  year.  They  came 
home  through  India.  Dell  says  they  are 
going  back  there  and  be  Brahmins." 

"Mrs.  Gresham  is  a  jolly  little  woman," 
said  Clem  briefly.  Her  heart  warmed  sud 
denly  with  memories  of  long  morning 
hours  and  lazy  afternoons  when  she  and 
Dell  Gresham  had  talked  with  common  in 
terest  and  understanding. 

Virginia  replied  with  civil  effort:  "She 
is  very  nice  indeed.  She  is  very  unconven 
tional,  though.  She  does  so  many  things 
that  other  women  don't  do,  perhaps 
would  n't  dare  to  do.  Yet  in  her  they  are 
perfectly  right.  Before  she  was  married 
she  was  the  same  way.  But  no  one  ever 
cared." 

"Why?"  demanded  Clem  quickly.  She 
turned  slightly,  and  stared  straight  at  the, 
simple  child  before  her. 

"Well,"  hesitated  Virginia,  "because  she 
is  Dell  Gresham  for  one  thing,  I  suppose. 
And  then,  whatever  she  does,  does  n't  mat 
ter  because,  no  matter  how  absurd  she  is, 

£126] 


CLEM 

all  the  time  every  one  knows  that  she  knows 
every  convention  to  the  letter,  and  simply 
does  n't  care  about  it.  And  nobody  else 
can  care,  you  see." 

Clem  bit  her  under  lip  cruelly.  She 
raised  herself  swiftly  on  one  elbow  and 
looked  keenly  at  the  girl.  Then  she  laid 
herself  down  again,  satisfied  that  nothing 
personal  could  have  been  meant.  That 
salad  course  was  in  her  mind  again.  Mrs. 
Gresham,  it  appeared,  might  have  eaten 
hers  with  a  spoon,  and  it  would  have  mat 
tered  not  at  all,  merely  because  she  hap 
pened  to  know — and  others  knew  she  knew 
— which  fork !  She  laughed  shortly,  as  she 
flung  her  arms  above  her  head. 

"Just  school  and  French  classes,  and 
dancing-classes,  and  art-schools,  and 
travel,  and  Paris ! '  And  people !  This 
sort ! — 

"I  Ve  had  school— some.  It  came  a  lit 
tle  late — I  was  almost  as  old  as  you  are 
now  when  I  really  had  your  sort  of  school, 
but  I  Ve  had  it.  I  hate  French,  but  I  know 
German,  learned  to  speak  it  when  I  was  a 


CLEM 

child — a  pal  of  my  father's  used  to  talk  it 
to  me  all  his  spare  time.  I  've  had  French 
as  far  as  that  goes — and  Paris.  I  've  had 
dancing-classes,  not  that  I  ever  needed 
them  much.  I  never  took  drawing;  but 
I  Ve  had  music — " 

She  felt  the  slow,  dark  flush  creeping 
over  her  face.  She  was  thinking  again  of 
that  long,  long  room,  and  the  songs  she 
sang,  and  she  was  bitterly  ashamed.  And 
she  did  not  in  the  least  know  why.  For 
even  now  she  told  herself  angrily  that  the 
coon  song  was  merely  broadly  funny,  no 
more.  She  was  not  capable  of  going  be 
yond  broad  fun.  But  everything  about  it 
had  been  wrong.  It  hurt  her  terribly  to 
remember  Mrs.  Wines's  face,  white  and 
frozen.  Even  Jack  Lowe,  with  all  his 
comforting  attempts  to  make  her  forget  it, 
had  only  succeeded  in  impressing  it  on  her 
that  only  the  men  appreciated  it,  cared  for 
it  at  all.  From  them  alone  had  come  her 
meed  of  applause.  She  had  never  cared 
for  the  applause  or  approval  of  women 
before.  But  here,  she  felt  the  lack  sorely. 


CLEM 

They  seemed  of  different  races,  these 
women  here,  and  she  herself.  And  why? 
She  was  trying  to  get  hold  of  the  tangle 
this  afternoon.  At  last  she  went  on : 

"But  people— this  sort — "  And  there 
she  stopped  again. 

Virginia  hesitated  a  moment.  Then  she 
spoke  clearly: 

"I  wonder,  sometimes,  if  I  Ve  had  too 
much  of  this  sort.  I  wonder  if  there  are  n't 
other  sorts  as  good — better !" 

She  dropped  her  brushes  and  pushed  her 
drawing-board  away,  and  stared  absently 
out  over  the  water.  Her  eyes  darkened, 
and  her  sweet  lips  curved  almost  bitterly. 
Clem  looked  at  her  wonderingly;  the 
words  seemed  like  heresy  to  her  who  had 
lived  all  her  life  beyond  the  pale;  who  had 
not  even  dreamed  that  such  people  as 
these  were  in  the  world;  and  who,  seeing 
them  now  for  the  first  time,  was  filled  with 
the  almost  certain  conviction  that  this  sort 
was  the  sort  most  to  be  desired,  even 
though  she,  by  force  of  what  had  gone  be 
fore,  were  forever  cut  off  from  it. 


CLEM 

"You  don't  really  think  that,"  she  as 
serted  at  length. 

"Ah,  don't  I !"  Virginia  breathed.  She 
caught  her  breath  sharply.  "At  least,"  she 
added,  after  a  bit,  "I  ought  to  know  other 
sorts,  if  only  to  be  able  to  judge  them  bet 
ter." 

Clem  glanced  furtively  at  the  girl's 
strained  face.  She  was  shrewd  enough  to 
perceive  that  Virginia  was  thinking  of  her 
not  at  all. 

"Oh,  in  this  world  it  does  n't  pay  to 
judge,"  Clem  said,  with  a  rather  grim 
laugh.  "The  worst  ones  of  us  have  some 
good  in  us,  though  it  may  not  come  out 
until  our  last  hour.  I  've  seen  some  men 
live  like  jackals,  and  die  like — gentle 
men." 

She  was  watching  the  girl's  face  rather 
sharply.  It  was  a  revelation  to  her  that 
Virginia  Garnet  could  be  so  vitally  moved 
by  inner  feelings.  The  younger  girl  spoke 
swiftly: 

"I  knew  it — I  always  knew  it— you 
mean  that  there  is  always  good  in  men." 


CLEM 

Clem  answered  soberly:  "I  don't  think 
of  any  man,  living  or  dead,  that  I  would  n't 
say  that  of."  And  something  impelled  her 
to  add,  "It  takes  death  though,  to  bring  the 
good  out  of  some  men.  And  nobody  wants 
to  live  with  a  jackal,  even  if  he  is  able  to 
die  like  a  gentleman." 

"You  've  known  a  great  many  men," 
Virginia  asserted.  "Do  you  think  a  man 
can  love — two  women?" 

Clem  laughed.  "Can !"  she  repeated  elo 
quently.  "They  do;  three — four — and  on 
up." 

"I  mean  at  one  time,"  Virginia  added. 

"Perhaps  not  four  at  a  time,"  Clem  re 
turned  frivolously,  "but  two  easily — they 
do  it  constantly — love  two  women." 

"I  mean  really  love,"  Virginia  insisted 
gently.  She  was  looking  far  into  Clem's 
eyes,  and  Clem,  rather  startled  by  the  in 
tensity  of  the  gaze,  checked  herself,  with  a 
slight  frown. 

"Oh,  well,  I  don't,"  she  said.  "That  's 
too  rare  to  talk  about." 

A  few  moments  of  silence  fell  between 


CLEM 

them.  Clem's  hands  were  clasped  lazily 
behind  her  head,  and  she  started  slightly 
when  Virginia's  voice  broke  the  pause. 

"I  knew  a  man  once,"  she  said  quickly 
— then  her  face  flushed  fiercely,  and  her 
white  throat  throbbed. 

"I  knew  a  man  once,"  she  repeated  in  a 
changed  voice,  "who  told  me — that  he 
loved  a  woman — with  a  sort  of  evil  fas 
cination — and  loved — a  girl  too,  better,  far 
better,  than  he  could  love  this  woman— 
Do  you  think  that  that  's  true?" 

Clem  stared  steadily  at  the  girl  from 
under  half-closed  lids.  It  was  all  very 
transparent,  and  very  young;  but  for  the 
first  time  in  her  memory,  Clem  Merrit 
shrank  from  her  knowledge  of  life.  She 
could  not  remember  the  time  when  she  had 
illusions,  but  she  knew  that  this  girl  beside 
her  was  arrayed  in  them,  despite  this  one 
evident  sad  rent;  and  the  perception  made 
her  hesitate. 

"Why,  it  could  be  true  enough,"  she  said 
slowly.  "But  why  did  he  run  around  tell 
ing  it — to  anybody?  Why  did  n't  he  go 


CLEM 

off  under  the  stars  and  fight  it  out,  face  to 
face  with  himself  ?" 

"He  should  n't  have  told?"  Virginia 
queried  vaguely.  "Not  any  one?  Not 
even  the  girl — to  explain  to  her  why  he  had 
to  leave  her—" 

"My  God!"  murmured  Clem  Merrit, 
very  slowly.  She  drew  herself  to  a  sitting 
posture,  and  fixed  a  level  gaze  upon  the 
waters.  "I  'd  hate  to  tell  you  what  I  think 
about  that,"  she  threw  over  her  shoulder 
at  Virginia. 

"But  I  wish  you  would,"  the  girl  per 
sisted.  "It  's— interesting.  I  wish  you 
would  tell  me." 

"How  old  was  that  man?"  Clem  asked 
curtly.  "Thirty-five!  And  an  up-to-date 
man,  eh !  Well,  he  was  n't  that  big  a  fool. 
And  if  he  was  n't  a  fool,  a  man  like  that, 
he  's  a  rascal." 

Virginia  spoke  with  a  sharp  catch  in  her 
voice.  "That  is  what  my  cousin  Drake 
said.  Exactly  what  he  thought." 

"Well,  your  cousin  Drake  's  an  experi 
enced  sort,"  said  Clem  dryly.  "He  ought 


CLEM 

to  know."  She  hesitated  a  moment,  and 
then  she  asked :  "That  other  man — he  is  n't 
among  your  sort?" 

"No,"  said  Virginia  dully. 

Clem  leaned  back  again  against  her 
rock,  and  watched  the  girl  as  she  gathered 
up  her  drawing-materials  restlessly.  It  had 
all  been  an  unwitting  confession  of  a  girl's 
first,  foolish  love,  and  Clem's  heart  warmed 
to  this  childish  thing  quite  as  fervently  as 
if  Virginia  had  voluntarily  confided  in  her. 
It  was  a  new  experience  for  Clem,  to  hear 
a  woman's  confidence,  and  she  cherished  it 
avidly.  This  girl,  shielded  like  a  flower 
from  life,  until  she  knew  nothing  of  life — 
Clem  wondered  longingly  what  a  girlhood 
like  this  girl's  must  be. 

"Just  school  and  travel,  and  classes,  and 
people — this  sort.     I  've  had  some  of  the 
school,    and    the    travel;    but    people- 
There  she  stopped  again. 

"You  've  had  people,"  Virginia  said 
longingly.  "The  sort  to  make  you  certain 
of  yourself;  but  my  whole  life  has  gone 

C'34] 


CLEM 

for  nothing  but  to  make  me  altogether  un 
certain." 

Clem  laughed  a  little  grimly.  "It  's  af 
fected  you  that  way  too,"  she  said  mu 
singly.  "And  yet  your  people  seem  certain 
enough.  They  've  got  no  doubts.  And 
I  've  not  had  many  in  my  life.  It  's  easy 
to  see  clear  when  you  see  only  one  side." 

Then  she  drew  herself  up.  She  knew 
nothing  of  the  literature  of  the  confes 
sional,  but  she  had  the  instinct  of  that  in 
comparable  guider  of  souls  who  gave  but 
two  minutes  to  confession  on  the  plea  that 
it  is  too  dangerous  a  relaxation.  Behind 
them  they  heard  the  shrill  whistle  of  an 
afternoon  train. 

"Shall  we  go  back?"  Virginia  asked,  the 
spell  that  was  on  her  broken  now  by  Clem's 
stirring.  "Dinner  is  early  to-night,  on  ac 
count  of  the  Goodwins,  and  the  Effingers, 
and  the  rest,  coming  over  for  the  evening." 

When  they  reached  the  house,  after  a 
rather  silent  walk,  they  found  Reggie 
there,  just  arrived  from  town,  whither  he 


CLEM 

had  gone  on  some  pressing  call  that  morn 
ing. 

"I  got  all  your  traps  and  Dell's,  Vee,"  he 
said.  "I  also  dropped  into  that  roof  gar 
den,  and  got  the  swing  of  that  infernal 
ragtime  you  were  trying  to  drill  into  me  a 
while  back.  See !" 

On  the  top  step  he  executed  a  marvel- 
ously  intricate  clog,  glancing  beyond  Vir 
ginia's  smiling  eyes  to  Clem.  She  was 
laughing  too,  but  a  look  lurked  within  her 
eyes  which  he  had  never  seen  there  before, 
and  he  was  fairly  conversant,  too,  with 
those  bits  of  blue.  He  sprang  down 
immediately  and  came  toward  her.  Per 
haps  he  had  never  looked  so  boyish,  and  so 
altogether  lovable. 

"Dell  's  calling  you,  Vee,"  he  said 
shamelessly.  "I  hear  her.  Anyway,  this 
cart  's  not  built  for  three.  And  Miss  Mer- 
rit  needs  a  bit  of  fast  driving  to  tone  her 
up." 

He  came  close  to  her  as  she  stood  on  the 
graveled  pathway.  Just  now  Reggie  was 
essentially  a  young  and  healthy  animal, 

C'36] 


CLEM 

with  a  healthy  scorn  of  mental  subtleties 
and  psychological  riddles.  Yet,  from  the 
very  facts  of  his  birth  and  environment,  he 
had  within  him  perceptions  and  feelings 
not  animal,  nor  material,  and  these  intangi 
ble  things  took  hold  of  him  and  gripped 
him  as  he  looked  into  Clem's  pale  face. 
Virginia  went  up  the  steps  and  disappeared 
within  the  house;  Reggie  noted  the  fact 
over  his  broad  shoulder.  Then  he  looked 
at  Clem  with  lovable  mastery. 

"Get  in,"  he  said  briefly.  But  she  did 
not  move,  merely  looked  at  him  steadily, 
with  dumb  contemplation  and  unworded 
questioning.  He  advanced  a  step  nearer. 

"What  's  up?"  he  asked.  "Has  any 
one-" 

He  stopped  because  he  could  not  go  on. 
It  was  a  question  hard  to  finish;  it  con 
ceded  too  much  of  possibility. 

Clem's  eyes  turned  suddenly  away,  dark 
ening  somberly.  For  the  first  time  in  her 
life,  perhaps,  she  caught  the  absolute  pitch 
of  a  ringing  chord,  and  knew  it.  In  that 
second  all  the  questionings  of  all  the  days 


CLEM 

just  past  found  their  swift,  relentless  an 
swer,  and  that  embryonic  thing,  formless 
and  nameless,  which  had  stirred  first  that 
afternoon,  moved  fiercely  within  her  soul 
once  again. 

"Clem !"  the  boy  said  harshly. 

She  faced  him  deliberately,  with  her 
shoulders  squared,  and  her  head  flung 
high.  Then  she  let  him  put  her  into  the 
cart.  In  another  moment  they  were  off, 
leaving  behind  them  a  small,  subsiding 
whirlwind  of  dust  and  pebbles.  And  the 
echo,  on  the  summer  breeze,  of  her  ringing 
laugh. 


C'38] 


IX 


MRS.  WINES  sat  wearily  this  night  at 
the  foot  of  her  table.  The  next  day 
would  see  the  departure  of  her  guests, 
most  of  them,  and  she  was  fiercely  glad. 
This  week  had  been  one  which  she  could 
never  forget,  and  which  she  would  have 
wiped  out  of  all  memory. 

About  her  silent  self  the  table  talk  rose 
to  ever  increasing  crests.  It  mounted 
higher  and  higher,  and  it  seemed  that  it 
would  never  fall;  yet  it  had  about  it  that 
instability  which  marks  a  mounting  wave 
whose  sure  collapse  must  come,  and  she 
waited  wearily  for  the  end,  with  every 
nerve  tightening  under  the  strain. 

Across  from  her,  on  Reggie's  right 
hand,  sat  Clem  Merrit.  He  had  placed  her 
there  to-night  with  some  ostentation;  had 
gone  to  the  length  of  exchanging  a  place 
or  two  to  accomplish  it.  On  Clem's  other 


CLEM 

side  sat  Lorimer,  and  on  Reggie's  left  were 
Dell  and  Lowe.  It  was  among  these  five 
that  the  talk  was  surging  to  such  heights 
of  gaiety. 

Mrs.  Wines  watched  the  girl  to-night 
with  eyes  which  were  filled  with  fear  as 
well  as  weariness.  The  fear  was  a  new 
one,  and  had  stolen  on  her  unawares,  to 
haunt  her  like  a  great  shadow,  bringing 
with  it  a  conviction  of  guilt,  a  certainty 
that  she  had  tampered  insultingly  with 
hidden  things.  Her  fear  was  no  longer 
the  mother's  fierce  dread  for  her  boy,  but 
sprang  from  the  shameful  knowledge  that 
she  had  put  out  a  wanton  hand  and  had 
bruised  a  soul. 

For  the  girl  had  seen — there  was  no 
doubt  of  that;  she  had  seen,  partially  at 
least,  the  difference.  She  was  not  crushed 
and  broken ;  she  was  bolder  and  gayer  and 
more  bewilderingly  assertive  to-night  than 
ever;  her  voice  was  higher  and  her  laugh 
more  loud.  Yet  for  three  days  past  there 
had  been  a  certain  gleam  in  her  eyes,  every 
sight  of  which  had  shocked  Reggie's 


CLEM 

mother  into  panic ;  which  made  her  feel  the 
cringing  craven  whenever  she  looked  into 
Clem  Merrit's  steady,  brilliant  eyes.  Par 
tially,  at  least,  the  girl  had  seen. 

To  Mrs.  Wines  the  proof  of  this  had 
been  plain,  in  Clem's  suddenly  evident 
comradeship  with  Lowe  and  Lorimer;  in 
her  resolute  pushing  of  Reggie  to  one  side ; 
in  his  restless  hoverings  on  the  outer  edge 
of  these  new  groupings,  and  his  patent  dis 
satisfaction  thereat.  For  the  three  of 
them  the  week  had  proved  a  bitter  one,  and 
to-night  she  felt  more  deeply  for  the  girl 
than  for  the  boy.  She  remembered  grate 
fully  now  Lorimer's  cold  bit  of  comfort 
on  the  day  of  her  discovery;  that  Reggie 
would  recover;  that  a  boy  must  have  his 
experiences,  his  fancied  loves.  Reggie's 
welfare  troubled  her  to-night  not  at  all; 
the  love-interest  thereof  had  long  since 
vanished  from  all  phases  of  the  case.  In 
this  thing  she  no  longer  thought  of  hearts. 
It  had  become  a  matter  of  soul,  a  matter  of 
responsibility  for  the  spirit  she  had  deliber 
ately  and  sorely  wounded.  For  the  girl 


CLEM 

had  seen.  She  was  no  adventuress.  She 
was  without  culture  or  refinement,  if  one 
chose  so  pitilessly  to  analyze  her,  but  she 
had  perception  enough  to  see  the  things 
which  Mrs.  Wines  had  determined  to  make 
her  see. 

Lorimer  had  helped  throughout  the 
week.  And  Lowe.  Mrs.  Wines  discovered 
herself  at  the  outset  to  be  glad  indeed  that 
Lowe  had  known  the  girl  before.  It  made 
his  rescuing  of  situations  less  patent  than 
Lorimer's  sometimes  seemed  to  her;  al 
though  nothing  could  have  been  more  deli 
cate  than  Lorimer's  silken  manceuvers. 
After  all,  Lowe  took  but  little  part  in  any 
thing  connected  with  the  girl's  position  in 
the  household,  and  he  was  not  in  the  confi 
dence  of  his  hostess  by  so  much  as  the 
breath  of  a  whisper.  Yet  she  felt,  with  the 
guilty  certainty  of  discovery  which  a  crim 
inal  feels,  that  Lowe  understood  perfectly 
the  situation,  and  resolutely  held  aloof, 
definitely  refused  to  be  entangled  in  so 
questionable  a  proceeding  as  this  had  been. 
But  Lorimer  had  been  openly  devoted  to 

£142  3 


CLEM 

the  girl,  more  and  more  genuinely  inter 
ested  as  the  days  passed. 

"She  is  a  most  interesting  type,"  he  said 
once  to  his  hostess,  and  in  a  certain  way 
Mrs.  Wines  resented  it;  it  sounded  heart 
lessly  scrutinizing,  cruelly  perceptive.  Yet 
to  anything  of  the  sort  in  Lorimer  the  girl 
had  been  oblivious,  unless  it  might  be  that 
in  the  last  few  days  there  had  come  a  subtle 
change  in  her  manner  to  him,  a  certain 
armed  neutrality  lying  within  her  eyes  as 
they  rested  on  Lorimer's  high-bred  face. 
Yes,  within  the  last  few  days  there  had 
certainly  come  a  change. 

She  sighed  wearily.  The  swirl  of  talk 
and  laughter  oppressed  her  beyond  meas-. 
ure.  How  she  longed  for  the  night  to  be 
ended — for  the  morning  to  dawn.  Then 
Farda  was  to  go  to  the  Effingers  for  over 
Sunday;  Lowe  was  to  go  into  town  for  a 
few  days  to  meet  some  London  friends  just 
arrived;  Clem  Merrit  was  to  leave  for  all 
time;  of  that  Mrs.  Wines  was  convinced. 
For  Clem  Merrit  had  perceived.  By  the 
next  evening  The  Pines  would  be  practi- 

C'433 


CLEM 

cally  cleared  of  visitors;  Dell  and  Eaton 
and  Lorimer  did  not  count  as  visitors. 
Even  Lorimer  might  be  gone,  if  he  decided 
to  accompany  Lowe. 

Shreds  of  talk  assailed  her  ears  now  and 
then,  and  from  time  to  time  she  listened 
listlessly,  smiling  at  the  proper  moments, 
but  silent.  When  last  she  listened  defi 
nitely,  they  had  been  recounting  poker 
stories— the  two  best  ones,  by  common 
consent,  were  Clem  Merrit's.  Now,  as  she 
came  out  of  her  painful  reverie,  horses  and 
racing  were  the  themes.  She  listened  with 
set  lips  to  the  verbal  proofs  of  Clem  Mer 
rit's  familiarity  with  the  Derby  winners  at 
home  and  abroad;  to  the  names  of  her  fa 
vorite  bookmakers;  to  all  the  argot  of  the 
race-tracks.  Never  had  such  talk  been 
heard  at  her  table,  and  she  shrank  from  its 
sound  as  from  physical  blows.  She  turned 
indignant  eyes  on  Lorimer  once,  when  he 
seemed  not  content  to  let  sleeping  dogs  lie, 
but  insisted  on  deeper  details.  She  glanced 
at  Reggie  too,  and  the  boy  met  her  eyes 

CM4] 


CLEM 

squarely.  He,  too,  was  pale,  but  she  saw 
again  that  straightening  under  fire  which 
she  had  seen  that  night  of  her  first  meeting 
with  the  girl,  when  she  had  been  mad,  mad, 
mad!  Unless  the  girl  had  truly  seen, 
would  come  to  her  help,  it  had  been  of  no 
use,  none  of  it! 

It  was  with  animated  and  vivid  detail 
that  Clem  was  answering  Lorimer's  ques 
tions  about  various  times  of  trial  and  tri 
umph  on  the  turf,  and  Mrs.  Gresham's 
eyes  lighted  up  with  her  own  interest.  She 
herself  was  desperately  fond  of  horses, 
and  she  held  to  the  topic  after  Lorimer  sat 
back,  silent  and  reflective.  He  was  think 
ing  of  the  real  fineness  of  these  rough 
men's  stories,  roughly  told  as  they  were. 
The  girl's  tale  always  had  its  point,  no 
matter  how  rough-hewn  the  handle  might 
be.  Here  was  a  woman  who  had  attained, 
through  some  processes,  to  a  man's  stand 
point  of  honor  and  conduct  of  life,  and  a 
man's  standpoint  on  a  few  other  trifles  as 
light  as  air  to  the  average  woman.  He 


CLEM 

wondered,  calmly,  how  much  of  that  which 
was  really  higher  and  finer  had  been  lost  in 
such  attaining. 

"Have  you  a  stable?  Really?"  Dell 
asked  eagerly. 

"I  wish  you  'd  come  down  into  Virginia 
and  see  it  some  time,"  Clem  answered  hos 
pitably.  "It  's  the  one  spot  on  earth  that  's 
really  home  to  me;  the  one  place  I  think 
I  'd  want  to  strike  for  if  I  was  dying,  don't 
you  know !  I  have  a  fine  two-year-old 
who  's  going  to  be  good  for  next  year. 
My  jockey?  Jimmy  Hinch.  He  can  ride 
at  ninety-five  pounds  when  he  has  to ;  has 
good  hands ;  rates  a  horse  well  in  front,  or 
behind  a  pace-maker.  He  can  ride  a  wait 
ing  race  too,  and  put  up  a  Garrison  finish. 
He  -'s  safe  and  careful,  and  a  quick  boy 
away  from  the  post,  and  he  can  have  a  leg 
up  on  Fleet  wood— 

At  last  the  high-crested  wave  slipped 
spinelessly  down  to  dead  level.  Clem's 
eyes  had  focused  themselves  squarely  on 
Mrs.  Wines  as  she  began  to  speak,  and  as 
her  voice  died  in  her  throat,  she  turned 

D46  ] 


CLEM 

slowly  away  from  her  hostess's  proud, 
pained  face.  Once  again,  and  forever,  it 
seemed  to  her,  she  saw  herself  mirrored  in 
that  woman's  eyes;  herself  as  she  was,  held 
up  against  this  background  of  a  life  into 
which  she  had  never  before  entered,  and  of 
which  she  had  never  dreamed. 

As  she  sat,  her  hand  gripping  fiercely 
the  thread-like  stem  of  her  wine-glass, 
Lorimer  leaned  forward,  speaking  in 
stantly,  his  words  seemingly  mere  inter 
ruption  ;  yet  the  girl's  lip  curled  with  pride 
and  anger  as  she  listened : 

"I  saw  Jimmy  Hinch  last  June,  Miss 
Merrit.  During  the  Saratoga  meet  he 
landed  two  2O-to-i  shots,  two  io-to-1 
shots,  two  8-to-i  shots,  beside  shorter- 
priced  horses.  He  's  one  of  the  few  good 
colored  boys  in  the  saddle  since  the  days  of 
J.  Winkfield.  Have  you  heard  that  the 
Derwin  stables  have  all  but  got  him?  I 
understand,  however,  that  he  's  a  free 
lance,  still." 

The  girl  picked  up  her  wine-glass  and 
drained  it.  She  contrived  to  pull  her  scat- 

E'47] 


CLEM 

tered  self  together,  and  her  voice  sounded 
almost  natural  as  she  replied. 

"I  know  the  major  domo  of  the  Derwin 
stables.  He  's  crazy  over  Hinch.  He 
won't  get  him,  either.  I  may  not,  but  he 
won't.  You  're  good  to  hand  me  what  you 
think  is  a  straight  tip,  though." 

Her  eyes  blazed  hotly  into  Lorimer's, 
and  stirred  him  for  a  moment  from  his 
wonted  calm.  There  is  something  about 
a  roused  woman  which  few  men  care  to 
provoke.  He  was  keen  enough  to  perceive 
that  she  saw  straight  through  his  manifest 
rescuing  of  the  situation,  and  was  far  from 
grateful  for  his  trouble,  and  he  was  doubly 
annoyed  at  her  perception  and  at  his  trans 
parency.  He  was  not  used  to  failing  so 
signally  in  finesse. 

But  at  this  moment,  they  all  turned,  by 
common  impulse,  toward  Reggie. 

"Here  's  to  Fleetwood,  topped  by 
Hinch !"  the  young  host  said.  His  words 
came  rapidly,  tumbling  over  each  other. 
"Fleetwood  's  worth  even  a  Hinch.  If  he 
keeps  up  his  present  form,  and  works  out 

CI483 


CLEM 

the  Derby  time,  he  must  go  to  the  post, 
and  we  '11  back  him  there !" 

It  was  a  boyish  rally  to  a  dust-trailed 
flag,  and  in  token  of  its  bravery,  the  all- 
concealing  talk  rose  again  with  a  gallant 
surge.  Lowe,  who  had  been  sitting  silent 
and  half  frowning,  bent  at  last  toward 
Farda  Grantham  with  a  sunny  smile. 

"Brace  up,  Farda,"  he  urged  encourag 
ingly.  "After  all,  what  do  you  care?  Dell 
bets,  you  know,  bets  viciously.  And  why 
not,  if  she  wants  to.  Or  anybody  wants 
to!" 

"That  sort  of  thing,  its  endurability,  de 
pends  altogether  on  breeding,"  said  Miss 
Grantham  icily.  "Our  ever  fruitful  con 
tention,  Jack;  blood  versus — ". 

Mrs.  Wines's  face  whitened  even  more, 
as  she  caught  the  stray  words  of  Farda's 
unreasoning  speech.  She  gave  the  rising 
signal  to  the  women;  but  Reggie  was  the 
first  of  all  on  his  feet,  and  his  chair  was 
pushed  back  with  a  commendable  decision. 

"We  shan't  stay  behind,  to-night,  moth 
er,"  he  said.  He  turned  openly  to  Clem 


CLEM 

Merrit,  and  walked  with  her  down  the 
wide  hall.  At  the  door  of  the  music-room 
they  held  a  short,  sharp  parley,  in  which 
the  girl  won. 

"Everybody  's  turning  in  here.  I  don't 
want  to  go  out  there  to-night,"  she  said 
repeatedly,  as  he  tried  to  induce  her  to 
leave  the  house  and  its  people  behind  them. 
She  cut  the  discussion  short  at  last  by  sit 
ting  down  within  a  window  recess,  and 
the  boy  took  up  a  defiant  stand  near  her, 
with  his  arms  folded,  and  a  heavy  frown 
darkening  his  brow.  Every  one  was  talk 
ing  again,  eagerly,  with  a  keen  sense  of 
relief.  The  dinner  hour  had  been  rather 
dreadful.  At  last  there  came  a  unanimous 
call  for  Dell. 

"Songs!"  that  small  lady  cried.  She 
jumped  down  from  a  window  where  she 
had  been  perching,  and  ran  over  to  the 
piano,  looking  quite  Mephistophelian  in  her 
scarlet  crepe.  She  stood  beside  the  piano, 
and  played  standing.  She  began  to  sing, 
a  gay,  English  music-hall  mixture  of  coster 
and  coon.  She  cake-walked  as  she  played, 


CLEM 

after  the  fashion  of  many  nations.  The 
entire  bit  of  business  was  indescribably  sug 
gestive  and  utterly  laughable,  and  for  that, 
as  well  as  because  of  the  dinner  and  its 
nerve-racking  incidents,  every  one  roared 
and  called  imperiously  for  repetition. 

As  Dell  reached  the  last  stanza  for  the 
second  time,  Clem,  sitting  half  hidden  in 
her  curtained  recess,  with  her  blue  eyes 
burning  coldly,  saw  Mrs.  Wines  enter  and 
stand,  unnoticed,  in  the  doorway.  Clem 
watched  her  with  bitterly  curious  eyes.  As 
Dell  cut  a  last  delicious  caper,  and  crashed 
out  one  resounding  final  chord,  Mrs.  Wines 
moved  quickly  across  to  her,  and  laid  a 
caressing  hand  upon  her  niece's  arm,  smil 
ing  the  while  into  the  sparkling  face. 

"Be  our  monkey  to-night,  Dell,"  she 
said.  "Wear  the  bells  for  a  full  hour,  and 
claim  what  reward  you  will." 

Clem  Merrit  hurled  herself  upward  to 
her  feet.  Had  she  followed  instinct,  "she 
must  have  screamed  aloud,  and  torn  at 
something,  be  it  flesh  or  stone.  The  call 
to  battle  sounded  in  her  ears.  Its  voice 


CLEM 

impelled  her.  She  had  held  herself  under 
rigid  restraint  for  many  days,  and  because 
of  that  had  suffered  many  things.  She 
was  leaving  the  next  day — thank  God!— 
but  before  she  left  this  house  of  suffering 
and  humiliation  she  must  cry  aloud  her 
defense — 

She  choked  back  a  strangling  gasp  of 
shame  and  resentment,  and  then  she  stepped 
quickly,  silently,  through  the  long  window 
near  her,  out  to  the  empty  veranda.  Once 
there,  beneath  the  cold,  pale  stars,  she  flung 
herself  in  weak  abandon  against  the  chill 
stone  of  one  of  its  great  pillars,  her  bare 
shoulders  writhing  and  twisting  in  her 
torment  of  spirit.  She  felt  like  a  leaf  in 
the  grasp  of  her  Fate. 

But  suddenly,  with  an  inward  horror, 
she  caught  herself  up.  Some  one  was 
coming  toward  her — a  man!  If  it  were 
Reggie — now — he  must  hear  her  out,  must 
know — 

But  it  was  not  Reggie — it  was  Drake 
Lorimer. 

She    faced   him   desperately,    her   body 

£152:1 


CLEM 

drawn  to  its  full  height,  her  hands  clasped 
behind  her,  her  bare  shoulders  still  resting 
against  the  cold  stone  pillar,  her  blue  dress 
turned  to  vivid  silver  where  the  high  lights 
fell.  She  rallied  every  force  within  her, 
and  with  her  first  uttered  word  she  gave 
way  without  further  attempt  at  resistance. 
After  all,  even  granted  the  strength  to 
play  it  out,  where  lay  the  use  of  such  a 
sorry  game!  This  man  knew  it  all,  had 
known  it  from  the  first.  She  had,  at  first, 
all  but  taken  him  into  her  confidence — fool, 
fool! — because  she  knew  from  Reggie  how 
great  a  part  he  bore  in  Reggie's  life.  He 
knew  it  all ;  had  been  the  one  to  present  her 
to  that  pitiless  mother ;  knew  why  she  had 
been  bidden  here ;  had  watched  and  waited, 
as  Reggie's  mother  had  watched  and 
waited;  had  taken  it  upon  himself,  time 
and  again,  to  spare  her,  to  save  her 
humiliations — her  high  spirit  sickened;  the 
play  had  played  itself  badly  out;  and  in 
this  moment  even  her  great  pride  went 
down. 

As  she  fled  past  him  with  her  brave 

£153:1 


CLEM 

greeting  strangling  in  her  throat,  Lorimer 
looked  after  her;  looked  after  her  till  the 
last  thread  of  shining  blue  was  swallowed 
up  in  the  bend  of  the  wide  staircase.  Then 
he  drew  a  long  breath. 

"I  am  beginning  to  wonder,"  he  said  to 
himself  slowly,  "what  sort  we  are,  all  of 
us,  held  up  against  her !  At  all  events  she  's 
played  a  gallant —  Oh,  it  's  damnably 
hard  on  her,  curse  it !" 

And  Lorimer,  too,  leaned  up  against  the 
pillar,  and  stared  into  the  velvety  black 
ness  of  the  night. 


X 


IT  was  afternoon  of  the  next  day.  Clem 
Merrit  was  to  leave,  in  company  with 
Lowe,  on  the  six  o'clock  train.  The  others 
were  to  go  after  dinner.  She  came  down 
to  luncheon  after  a  morning  spent  in  her 
room,  a  withdrawal  which  lost  her  any 
farewell  speech  with  Miss  Grantham,  who 
was  driven  over  to  the  Effinger  place 
shortly  before  noon  by  Lowe,  who  did  not 
return  for  luncheon.  After  that  meal  was 
ended  Clem  went  out  to  some  side  steps, 
where  Reggie  was  awaiting  her,  evidently 
by  appointment.  The  young  man  looked 
worried  and  pale  and  altogether  unhappy. 
They  went  across  the  lawn  together,  and 
disappeared  in  the  shadow  of  the  dolorous 
pines.  Two  hours  later  she  came  back 
alone,  and  went  to  her  room,  sending  down 
brief  word  that  she  wished  to  leave  an  hour 
earlier,  on  the  five  o'clock  train. 


CLEM 

At  four  o'clock  she  came  down-stairs, 
dressed  for  her  journey  to  town.  She 
glanced  at  the  great  clock;  then  her  eyes 
met  those  of  her  hostess,  who  for  all  of 
the  past  hour  had  been  pacing  the  length 
of  the  hall.  As  the  two  women  looked  on 
each  other,  Mrs.  Wines  came  to  a  dead 
stop  at  the  foot  of  the  staircase.  As  Clem 
stood  on  the  lower  step,  she  addressed  the 
older  woman  coolly. 

"If  you  '11  send  an  order  around,  Mrs. 
Wines,  for  the  station  cart  to  be  ready,  I'  11 
go  right  down  to  the  station,  as  soon  as 
I  've  had  a  little  talk  with  you ;  but  I  want 
to  see  you  first.  Can  we  be  alone,  in  here  ?" 

Mrs.  Wines  made  as  if  to  offer  faint 
protest  of  some  sort,  then  she  changed  her 
mind,  and  gave  the  necessary  orders;  and 
then  she  led  the  way  silently  to  the  library, 
toward  which  Clem  had  turned.  When 
the  door  closed  behind  them,  the  girl  mo 
tioned  the  older  woman  to  a  chair,  and 
then,  disdaining  one  for  herself,  stood  be 
fore  her,  straight  and  tall  and  beautiful  as 
a  young  goddess. 


CLEM 

"I  wanted  to  see  you  before  I  left,"  she 
began  in  a  voice  wonderfully  controlled, 
"because  I  want  to  tell  you  some  things 
I  've  told — your  son — already.  I  want  to 
tell  you  what  he  did  n't  want  you  to  know 
at  first,  that  we  were  engaged  when  I  came 
here.  He  said  he  was  too  young,  and  still 
in  college,  and  that  was  straight  enough, 
but  I  know  now  he  was  afraid  of  how 
you  'd  take  it.  I  give  you  my  word  of 
honor  I  never  thought  of  that — of  your 
right  to  know — till  I  came  here;  since  then 
I  've  not  thought  of  much  else.  It  's  been 
a  hard  week,  the  hardest  I  've  ever  lived 
through.  In  one  sense  it  's  not  your  fault, 
and  then  again,  in  another,  it  is. 

"I  'd  like  to  tell  you  the  way  I  Ve  been 
brought  up.  I  wonder  if  it  would  make 
you  understand,  or  if  you  'd  only  turn  away 
the  more.  My  father  came  from  the  East 
here  somewhere,  but  he  had  to  cut  the 
place,  and  he  went  out  West.  My  mother" 
—the  girl  moistened  her  dry  lips — "my 
mother  was  an  actress,  and  not  a  very  good 
one.  My  father  really  brought  me  up. 

C'57] 


CLEM 

Sometimes  she  'd  get  crazy  for  the  life 
again,  and  she  'd  go  back  to  the  stage,  and 
I  'd  be  left  with  him.  She  did  n't  care  for 
either  of  us,  except  when  her  shows  got 
stranded,  and  she  needed  some  place  to 
come  to.  My  father  took  me  everywhere 
with  him.  I  've  been  on  the  stage,  too, 
when  I  was  a  child,  in  children's  parts,  a 
lot  of  them.  When  I  was  fifteen  my 
mother  finally — ran  away.  Since  then 
she  died.  I  never  saw  her  after  she  left 
my  father  for  good.  Six  years  ago  my 
father  struck  it  rich,  and  since  then  I  've 
had  everything  I  wanted — my  father  's 
meant  for  me  to  have  the  best  kind  of  a 
time,  and  finally,  with  all  the  money,  to 
make  a  good  match.  I  suppose  he  'd  rather 
see  me  married  to  some  good  man  than  to 
hit  another  gold-mine.  And  I  've  met  a  lot 
of  men,  but  there  's  been  a  small  few  of 
them  I  'd  ever  think  of  marrying. 

"I  told  all  this,  and  more,  to  your  son— 
when  he  proposed  to  me — everything.  I  've 
said  no  man  should  ever  marry  me  with 
out  knowing  the  whole  truth  about  some 
things.  He  did  n't  mind;  but  I  give  you 


CLEM 

my  word  of  honor  I  never  thought  once  of 
how  you  'd  take  it,  or  of  his,  or  my,  duty 
to  you. 

"You  see,  I  've  lived  all  my  life  with 
men,  from  the  time  I  was  born.  Bad  men, 
and  mad  men,  with  just  one  law  among 
them — might;  but  it  had  a  whole  lot  of 
right  after  all — after  you  measure  the  civ 
ilized  sort  against  them.  I  don't  like  women, 
and  they  don't  like  me.  I  wish  they  did.  I 
never  cared  about  it  till  this  week,  and  then, 
all  of  a  sudden,  I  got  to  hating  all  those  men 
I  'd  ever  known — the  way  they  'd  crowded 
round  me.  They  've  always  done  it,  but 
somehow,  it  all  at  once  did  n't  seem  nice. 
I  've  looked  at  everything  from  a  man's 
standpoint  all  my  life.  It  's  hard  for  me 
to  get  a  woman's  view.  That  first  eve 
ning,  when  I  met  you,  no  woman  had  ever 
laid  her  hand  on  mine  in  just  that  way  be 
fore  and  I  honestly  thought  for  a  little 
while  that  perhaps  one  woman  really  liked 
me. 

"It  's  been  a  hard  week,  Mrs.  Wines,  for 
it  's  opened  my  eyes,  and  I  've  seen  what 
I  've  missed  and  what  I  '11  have  to  miss. 

['593 


CLEM 

I  know  why  you  did  it,  and  I  want  to  tell 
you  you  Ve  succeeded.  You  've  shown  me 
the  gulf.  I  'm  not  going  to  throw  myself 
into  it,  but  no  more  am  I  going  to  try  to 
step  across.  It  's  been  hard  to  stay  it  out. 
It  's  been  full  of  hard  knocks — that  first 
night  here,  when  I  sang  that  song,  and 
saw  your  face — and  that  was  n't  near  as 
hard  a  thing  as  last  night,  when  another 
woman  stood  up  to  the  piano  and  sang  a 
song  that  went  ahead  of  mine  by  some  de 
grees.  I  dare  say  that  little  girl  is  right. 
When  people  know  the  right  thing  they 
don't  have  to  do  it.  Yes,  it  's  been  a  hard 
week.  But  I  don't  blame  you.  If  I  'd 
such  a  son,  and  he  was  so  near  to  ruining 
his  whole  life,  I  'd  have  been  brave  enough 
to  do  the  same  thing. 

"I  want  to  tell  you  this,  too— I  've  told 
your  son  already.  It  's  my  father  's  had 
the  ambition,  and  all  because  he  's  so  proud 
of  me.  As  far  as  I  'm  concerned  I 
would  n't  marry  a  crown  prince  unless  I 
cared  for  him,  and  I  'd  tell  no  man  my 
whole  story  unless  I — 

£1603 


CLEM 

"I  saw  your  son  this  afternoon  and  had 
it  all  out  with  him.  He  blames  himself 
terribly  for  feeling  the  difference  as  he 
has — you  and  me  together — and  he 
would  n't  believe  me  when  I  told  him  that 
his  manner  toward  me  has  been  my  one 
comfort  this  week — and  it  has.  He  's 
stood  out  against  a  good  deal — for  you 
mean  a  lot  to  him — and  so  do  I;  but  it 
could  n't  be  helped.  He  could  n't  help  it, 
and  you  could,  n't,  and  I  could  n't.  It  's 
been  hard  for  us  all.  You  've  flicked  me 
on  the  raw,  time  and  again,  but  it  's  been 
mostly  involuntary;  you  did  n't  mean  to. 

"I  had  to  throw  him  over  myself.  He  's 
so  mad  with  cut  pride  that  he  'd  marry  me 
to-night — and  he  blames  you  some.  He 
says  the  test  among  your  sort  of  people 
was  unfair  to  me.  Well,  it  was ;  but  it  was 
fair  to  him,  and  to  you;  and  I  want  you 
and  him  to  know  that  I  don't  blame  either 
one  of  you.  He  '11  see  it  straight  in  a  little 
while,  and  be  glad  you  did  what  was  hard 
and  right." 

She  stopped  at  last.    Mrs.  Wines  raised 

£161] 


CLEM 

her  bent  head  and  looked  up  at  the  girl. 
She  half  rose,  but  Clem  pressed  her  gently 
back. 

"Don't!"  she  said  briefly.  "I  know 
you  're  sorry  it  all  had  to  happen,  but  it 
had  to,  and  words  don't  help  it.  If  you 
want  to  do  anything  for  me  at  all,  you  '11 
sit  still,  and  let  me  go  away  without  a 
word." 

She  picked  up  her  hand-bag  and  turned 
toward  the  door.  Then  she  paused  for  a 
brief  moment,  and  came  back. 

"There  's  one  thing  I  'd  like  to  have  you 
say  to  your  son,"  she  added.  "It  's  not 
the  heart  hurt  that  's  the  worst  in  this  for 
either  him  or  me.  I  've  never  had  much 
of  a  chance  myself,  but  I  know  a  lady 
when  I  see  one,  and  I  know  a  gentleman; 
and  I  want  you  to  tell  him  that  he  's  one, 
clear  through.  That  's  what  's  cutting 
him  up  more  than  losing  me.  I  want  you 
to  tell  him  that." 

And  then  she  went  over  to  the  door  and 
opened  it,  and  closed  it  gently  behind  her. 

[162] 


XI 


WHEN  Mrs.  Wines  had  realized  that 
Clem  Merrit  was  leaving  on  a  train 
other  than  the  one  arranged  for,  and  that 
Lowe  might  not  be  back  to  attend  her,  she 
sent  a  message  to  Lorimer  at  the  same  time 
that  she  sent  orders  for  the  station  cart  to 
be  in  readiness ;  and  it  was  in  obedience  to 
that  request  that  Lorimer  was  standing, 
waiting,  beside  the  cart.  He  was  only  too 
keenly  aware  of  the  progress  of  events;  he 
had  known  when  Reggie  and  Clem  disap 
peared  earlier  in  the  afternoon;  he  had 
seen  her  come  back  alone;  he  knew  by  the 
wording  of  the  servant's  message  that  she 
had  been  closeted  with  Mrs.  Wines  for 
half  an  hour.  He  drew  out  his  watch,  and 
discovered  that  her  choice  of  trains  left 
her  but  little  margin.  He  knew  that  she 
had  intended  to  leave  on  a  later,  fast  train, 
and  he  felt  certain  that  this  blind  choice  of 
an  accommodation  horror  augured  Reg- 


CLEM 

gie's  ignorance  of  her  intended  departure 
on  it,  augured  at  least  that  it  was  incum 
bent  on  him,  Lorimer,  to  see  her  fairly 
started  on  her  journey. 

He  looked  up  finally  to  see  her  standing 
before  him.  She  had  come  quickly  from 
the  entrance  door,  alone.  She  walked  to 
ward  him  with  her  old,  free  walk;  but 
her  eyes  were  black,  and  her  face  was 
pallid.  It  was  merely  an  accident  that 
no  one  of  the  other  guests  happened  to 
be  near  to  bid  her  farewell.  No  one 
knew,  of  course,  that  she  was  leaving 
on  the  earlier,  slower  train,  except  Mrs. 
Wines  and  he  himself,  and  Reggie,  possi 
bly.  Reginald  the  Rescued !  Yet  Lorimer 
felt  a  sudden  wrath  against  them  all,  be 
cause  of  the  loneliness,  the  seeming  un 
friendliness  of  her  departure. 

She  came  unhesitatingly  toward  him, 
and  held  out  a  steady  hand. 

"Good-by,"  she  said.  She  looked 
straight  into  his  eyes,  and  as  she  looked  at 
him,  a  faint  shadow  of  a  smile  caught  her 
lips  and  curled  them.  Lorimer  winced  in- 


CLEM 

wardly;  Lowe's  almost  forgotten  words 
flashed  into  his  mind:  "She  might  have 
been  the  primeval  Woman,  walking  un 
trodden  sands,  pressing  the  springing 
earth  when  the  world  was  young!"  Some 
how,  under  the  influence  of  that  flickering 
smile,  which  seemed  to  reveal  a  basic  judg 
ment,  he  felt  ultra-civilized — the  world- 
weary  offspring  of  a  superficial  age — he 
felt  veneered. 

He  held  out  his  hand  to  assist  her,  but 
she  stepped  lightly  in  without  noticing  it, 
without  touching  it,  save  in  that  fleeting 
conventionality  of  farewell. 

"The  station,  Matthews,"  she  said. 

"The  station,  Matthews,"  Lorimer  ut 
tered,  at  precisely  the  same  moment,  and 
sprang  in  beside  her.  She  flung  up  her 
head  haughtily  at  the  act,  and  stared  at 
him;  then  her  lips  curled  again,  not  pur 
posely,  but  involuntarily,  and  she  looked 
steadily  away  from  him. 

They  drove  in  silence  until  they  reached 
the  high-road,  and  then  Lorimer  spoke 
again  to  the  man.  "Take  it  at  good  speed, 


CLEM 

Matthews,"  he  said.  Then  he  turned  to 
the  girl. 

"The  five  o'clock  train  is  all  but  due; 
you  would  be  fortunate  to  miss  it.  Some 
one  should  have  insisted  on  your  waiting 
for  the  six  o'clock  express.  You  reach 
town  practically  as  soon,  and  often  sooner. 
This  earlier  one  is  a  horrible  example  of 
the  local  accommodation." 

"It  does  n't  matter  at  all,"  said  the  girl 
briefly.  Once  again  she  was  facing  him 
steadily,  her  eyes  full  on  him,  with  that 
faint  smile  still  hovering  about  her  mouth. 
As  he  uttered  once  again  something  con 
ventional  and,  as  he  himself  realized,  ut 
terly  banal,  she  flung  up  her  hand  scorn 
fully,  in  bitter  protest. 

"The  scenery!"  she  echoed.  The  hot 
anger  in  her  eyes  deepened,  she  paused  a 
second;  then  she  turned  away  from  him 
once  again,  and  stared  straight  ahead. 

"You  know  all  about  this  thing,"  she 
began  swiftly;  "and  since  you  've  taken  it 
on  yourself,  unasked  and  unneeded,  to  see 
me  to  the  station,  fairly  off  the  grounds 


CLEM 

I  've  poached  on,  we  '11  not  ignore  it.  I  've 
just  settled  with  Mrs.  Wines  back  yonder, 
and  I  'm  ready  to  settle  once  for  all  with 
you.  In  the  first  place,  whatever  there  was 
between  Reggie  and  me  is  ended.  In  the 
second  place,  it  stays  ended,  and  that  's 
all." 

"I  rejoice  that  you  force  speech  between 
us,"  Lorimer  replied.  "Because  I  hardly 
see  how  I  may  have  a  peaceful  hour  again, 
if  I  may  not  tell  you  that  every  one  con 
cerned  in  this  business,  save  perhaps  Reg 
gie,  owes  you  abject  apology—" 

"Save  only  Reggie!"  amended  Clem 
Merrit  proudly. 

"Save  only  Reggie!"  repeated  Lorimer. 
"I  myself  have  seemed  to  you  responsible 
for  a  good  deal—" 

"You  have  made  yourself  responsible 
for  a  good  deal,"  said  the  girl  flatly. 
"That  's  the  reason  I  'm  talking  to  you 
right  now.  A  good  many  people  got  inter 
ested  in  the  thing,  more  than  enough  to 
show  me  that  I  was  a  mistake.  Between 
you  two,  you  and  Mrs.  Wines,  you  've 


CLEM 

cuddled  and  coddled  Reggie  till  it  's  a 
wonder  he  's  what  he  is.  She  's  a  woman ; 
but  you  're  a  man — you  ought  to  know 
better.  Well,  the  lid  's  off  now.  He  's 
cut  the  strings  that  tied  him  to  you  and  his 
mother,  and — I  cut  the  strings  that  tied 
him  to  me.  He  belongs  to  himself  now, 
and  it  's  high  time." 

"I  am  thoroughly  convinced  that  an  all 
but  unforgivable  mistake  was  made,"  con 
fessed  Lorimer.  "I  'm  not  talking  about 
Reggie  now ;  I  'm  talking  about  you.  You 
make  me  feel  Pharasaical — when  I  think 
of  you!" 

"Don't  think  of  me!"  she  retorted  in 
stantly.  "And  don't  be  at  all  disturbed  in 
your  even  living  if  by  any  chance  you  do. 
Because,  honestly,  I  think  I  've  got  a 
clearer,  cleaner  conscience  than  any  of  you 
people  can  have,  except  Reggie." 

She  hesitated  a  moment,  and  then  she 
turned  full  on  Lorimer.  "He  's  dreadfully 
cut  up  over  this,  just  now,"  she  said  husk 
ily.  "He  's  such  a  beautiful,  straight- 
souled  boy.  Help  him  out  in  it — tell  him 


CLEM 

anything  you  like  about  me,  that  I  'm  a 
wretched  flirt,  that  I  'm  an  adventuress — 
anything!  It  does  n't  matter  what  you 
say  about  me,  because — you  see,  he  thinks 
it  's  me — losing  me — that  he  feels  so 
broken  up  over.  It  's  not  that — I  know — 
near  so  much  as  the  fear  that  he  has  n't 
acted  straight  toward  me.  Once,  when  he 
hesitated,  after  I  'd  made  him  see  the  dif 
ference  he  would  n't  own  up  to,  and  his  lie 
did  n't  come  quick  enough,  I  snatched  at 
that — it  was  the  only  thing  he  'd  left  me 
to  snatch  at — I  could  n't  lie  to  him  myself, 
tell  him  I  was  an  adventuress,  and  so  he  's 
crazy  with  fury  at  himself,  thinking  he  's 
no  gentleman,  when  he  's  the  finest, 
straightest,  cleanest — I  could  n't  lie  about 
myself  to  him  that  way,  it  seemed  too 
awful.  I  hope  he  '11  see  it  clear  and 
straight,  and  be  sensible.  You  can  lie  to 
him  if  it  will  do  any  good — he  '11  come  out 
all  right.  You  'd  better  get  him  away 
from  that  woman,  though — his  mother. 
She  's  good  and  high  and  angelic,  but 
she  's  no  sort  of  medicine  for  him  now." 

i: 


CLEM 

"What  sort  do  you  take  me  for !"  asked 
Lorimer  harshly.  "How  could  I  possibly 
lie  about  you!  After  this  talk,  after  all 
you  've  said,  I  can't  trust  myself  to  say  a 
word  about  you  to  him,  for  if  I  did— 
you  've  made  me  feel  as  if  we  are,  all  of 
us, — snobs!" 

Clem  Merrit  sat  straight.  "Well,  do 
you  know,"  she  remarked  quietly,  "I  be 
lieve  in  my  soul  that  's  what  you  all  are- 
snobs  !  It  's  not  a  pretty  word,  and  you 
have  everything  to  say  for  yourselves, 
from  your  standpoint ;  but  from  my  stand 
point,  just  now,  you  seem  like  a  lot  of 
well-bred,  unconscious — snobs!  Your  lit 
tle  world,  your  little  circle,  your  little  lives 
— it  's  all  that  matters  to  you!  And  when 
any  outside  shock  comes — like  me! — you 
draw  up  like  sensitive  plants,  touch-me- 
nots  !  It 's  been  a  hellish  week,  for  I  began 
to  get  your  idea  the  first  night  I  came,  and 
you  've  been  one  of  the  chief  ones  to  make 
me  see  it  more  and  more,  ever  since — with 
your  interruptions  and  explainings  and 
filling  in  pauses  and  all  that  granny  busi- 
[170] 


CLEM 

ness.  And  after  eight  days  of  it,  of  what 
that  good  woman  back  yonder  put  on  me 
deliberately  and  made  me  carry,  I  'm  leav 
ing  you,  feeling  that,  if  to  be  your  sort  I  'd 
have  to  be  exactly  like  you,  self-compla 
cent  and  pitiless  to  every  one  outside  my 
little  one-two-three  crowd,  I  'm  glad,  glad, 
glad,  that  I  'm  Clem  Merrit,  what  I  am :  a 
woman  who  's  seen  enough  of  life  of  all 
sorts,  to  know  for  all  eternity  that  no  one 
side  of  life  can  afford  to  sit  back  in  a  smug 
little  corner  and  say,  'I  'm  It.'  I  'm  not 
blaming  her — I  've  told  her  that — she  did 
it  for  her  boy;  and  she  made  me  see  what 
I  'd  never  dreamed  before,  that  I,  'or  any 
woman  like  me,  must  n't  ever  come  be 
tween  her  and  him.  But  you — after  all, 
you  don't  really  believe  you  are  a  snob,  or 
that  you  have  a  touch  of  it.  You  're  sim 
ply  uncomfortable  because  I  'm  a  woman 
in  an  uncomfortable  position  where  you've 
helped  put  me,  and  it  's  made  you  uncom 
fortable  because  you  've  seen  me  writhe 
once  or  twice.  This  is  naked  talk — it 
does  n't  matter,  because  we  shan't  meet 

['70 


CLEM 

again,    ever.      We    're    just    making   that 
train.     Thank  you.     Good-by!" 

In  a  strangely  helpless  silence  Lorimer 
stood,  watching  the  dun  local  creep  slowly 
away.  The  coaches  were  dusty  and  grimy, 
and  the  sight  of  them  heaped  reproaches 
on  him.  No  one,  not  even  he,  had  insisted 
on  that  later,  more  comfortable  train.  No 
one  had  suggested,  objected,  when  she 
took  the  matter  into  her  own  hands,  and  * 
chose  the  first  train,  regardless  of  its  sort, 
which  would  bear  her  away  from  the 
scene  of  carnage  after  the  battle  was 
ended. 

He  stepped  back  into  the  cart  with  ting 
ling  nerves.  The  echo  of  her  voice  still 
lashed  him.  There  was  something  in 
tensely  primitive  and  direct  about  the  girl's 
point  of  view,  something  which  shamed 
conventions,  and  made  most  of  them  seem 
nothing  but  shams.  The  test  had  been 
unfair.  Shamefully  unfair!  They  had 
arrogantly  set  up  their  standard  that  she 
might  be  measured  thereby,  and  by  it 


CLEM 

stand  or  fall.  And  then,  to-day,  she  had 
planted  firm  her  own  measuring  rod,  and 
had  placed  them  against  it,  not  as  indi 
viduals,  by  so  much  had  she  been  kinder 
than  they,  but  as  a  circle,  and  had  pro 
nounced  them  wanting  in  things  vital. 
They  were  hardly  snobs — Lorimer  winced 
under  her  use  of  that  word — but  the  es 
sence  of  snobbery  lay  in  their  manner  of 
judgment  of  this  girl  whose  white  face 
had  just  slipped  by  him  from  a  window 
of  the  creeping  train,  this  girl  who,  in  the 
midst  of  her  shame,  and  from  the  rem 
nants  of  her  cut  pride,  found  pride  enough 
to  be  glad  she  was  not  one  of  them. 

By  and  by  he  remembered  her  plea  for 
Reggie.  That  must  be  attended  to  imme 
diately — the  boy's  going  away.  It  should 
be  where  he  wished,  with  whomever  he 
wished.  Home  was  not  the  place  for  him 
just  now;  even  his  mother  must  realize 
that.  The  whole  affair  had  been  a  bitter 
mistake. 

As  they  turned  into  the  drive  leading  to 

C'733 


CLEM 

the  house,  Lorimer,  buried  in  unquiet 
thought,  started  at  the  sound  of  a  cry  on 
his  left.  He  looked  up  quickly  to  see  a 
man,  one  of  the  under-servants,  waving 
his  hat  wildly,  and  pointing  toward  the 
house,  dimly  visible  through  the  trees. 

"What  does  he  say,  Matthews?"  Lori 
mer  asked  quickly. 

"That  we  're  wanted,  sir,  at  the  house, 
as  quick  as  may  be,"  the  man  replied,  and 
touched  up  his  horses  to  swifter  pace. 

After  a  bit  Lorimer  spoke  again,  an  odd 
premonition  thrilling  him. 

"He  was  waiting  for  us,  Matthews?" 

"It  looked  that  way,  sir." 

"He  said  nothing  else?" 

"Nothing  else,  sir." 

Lorimer  leaned  forward,  watching  in 
tently.  He  did  not  know  what  he  feared, 
nor  for  whom  his  fear  gripped  him  so 
heavily.  As  they  dashed  up  the  last  hun 
dred  feet  of  the  driveway,  rounding  the 
last  curve  in  a  hail  of  pebbles,  he  saw  Dell 
Gresham  standing,  bare-headed,  on  the 
steps,  waiting  for  him.  As  he  sprang 

[1743 


CLEM 

down  and  hurried  to  her,  he  thought  invol 
untarily  of  a  day,  six  years  before,  when 
all  the  long  day  through,  her  first  and  only 
child  lay  dying,  and  her  face  wore  then 
this  same  pallid  look  of  waiting  helplessly 
for  some  oncoming  terror. 


£175:1 


XII 

sank  into  one  of  the  hot,  plush- 
v^  covered  seats  of  the  local  accommoda 
tion,  and  closed  her  eyes.  They  stung 
fiercely,  and  in  another  second  she  opened 
them  wide,  and  bent  forward  impulsively, 
to  peer  through  the  dusty  window  for  one 
last  glimpse  of  the  station  cart,  already 
turning  on  its  trip  back  to  The  Pines,  to 
the  Greshams,  to  that  still,  cool,  flower-like 
girl,  to  Reggie- 
Then  it  was  that  her  color  flamed  hot. 
Her  brain  was  clear  and  keen,  and  of  this 
fleeting  madness  of  hers  she  saw  the  ab 
surdity  as  she  had  never  seen  it  before; 
saw  it  with  ultimate  vividness  as  her  last 
sight  of  Lorimer  was  lost — Lorimer,  set 
tling  back  against  the  cushioned  seat,  light 
ing  the  cigarette  which  was  to  prove  no 
panacea  to  his  strained  nerves. 

Against  him,  too,  her  color  flamed  hot. 


CLEM 

He  had  played  a  large  part  in  her  disillu 
sionment  of  this  past  week,  a  part  larger 
than  he  knew ;  and  at  the  last  he  had  proved 
himself  to  be  the  bitterest  disappointment  of 
them  all.  To  Mrs.  Wines  she  had  been  able 
to  do  full  justice,  and  Reggie,  in  spite  of  all 
things,  had  proved  himself  to  be  what  she 
had  always  known  him  to  be  from  the  be 
ginning  of  their  brief  friendship,  a  clean, 
honorable,  beautiful  lover.  That  stormy 
scene  of  theirs,  far  away  from  meddlers, 
in  the  sweet-scented,  dusky  woods — she 
was  no  novice  at  handling  men,  and  dur 
ing  the  last  four  or  five  years,  she  had 
worn,  for  a  brief  space  at  a  time,  more 
than  one  engagement  ring ;  but  because  this 
experience  had  been  so  vital  to  her  and  to 
him,  it  had  almost  slipped  her  control.  She 
had  said,  and  had  said  truly,  that  his  deep 
est  grief  was  the  knowledge  that  in  some 
dark  way  he  did  not  understand  he  had 
failed  her;  and  she  honored  him  more  for 
this  deepest  grief  of  his,  than  for  his  gen 
uine  madness  over  his  losing  of  her.  Her 
life  of  the  past  few  luxurious  years  had 

[177:1 


CLEM 

been  spent  almost  altogether  with  the  mon- 
ied  floating  riff-raff  of  cities  and  resorts. 
She  had  known  many  men,  but  she  had  been 
thrown  with  few  men  who  ever  pretended 
to  idealize  her.  Of  all  her  lovers  Reggie 
was  the  first  to  place  her  in  a  shrine;  and 
because  of  his  worship  of  the  soul  which  he 
ascribed  to  her,  and  not  entirely  of  the 
beauty  at  whose  effect  on  so  many  she  had 
too  often  sneered,  her  deepest  instincts  had 
leaped  to  do  him  homage. 

Yes,  of  them  all,  Reggie  had  not  failed 
her;  and  she  loved  him  for  it,  tenderly, 
gratefully,  after  a  manner  of  which  a 
mother,  even  his  mother,  need  not  be  re 
sentful.  Jack  Lowe,  indeed,  had  been  her 
staunch  friend,  that  she  knew ;  but  he,  after 
all,  seemed  slightly  different  from  the 
others  in  his  view  of  things.  Nonsensical 
things  did  not  matter  to  Jack,  as  they  mat 
tered  to  others— 

This  man,  Drake  Lorimer — she  per 
ceived  now,  as  she  looked  on  him  for  the 
last  time,  that  she  had  always  been  waiting 
for  him  to  do  something,  be  something, 


CLEM 

prove  himself  something,  and  in  this  end 
ing  to  it  all,  he  had  failed,  not  her,  but 
himself.  It  was  all  vague  and  unwordable, 
but  somehow  he  had  failed. 

From  the  first  he  appealed  to  her,  as  a 
perfect  type  of  the  gentleman  born  and 
bred;  from  that  first  night  that  she  had 
seen  him,  in  that  gipsy  tent  of  hers,  in 
which  she,  or  her  father  for  her,  had  vol 
unteered  to  take  Dell  Gresham's  place  as 
palm  reader  for  charity.  She  did  not  take 
books  seriously  as  authentic  excerpts  from 
life,  and  she  did  not  accept  as  undiluted 
realism  Ouida's  descriptions  of  the  Eng 
lish  aristocracy.  But  it  was  only  through 
books  that  she  knew  his  seeming  type,  and 
it  had  somehow  appealed  to  her  from  the 
beginning  as  heroic. 

She  knew  him  before  their  meeting  for 
Reggie's  best  friend;  she  had  been  pre 
pared  to  like  him  for  Reggie's  sake,  and 
had  liked  him  instantly  for  his  own.  The 
first  evening  at  The  Pines  she  felt  herself 
drawn  to  him  with  open  liking.  Looking 
back,  she  saw  now  how  he  had,  even  then, 


CLEM 

begun  his  shielding  of  her  in  many  ways, 
ways  which  she  did  not  perceive  then,  be 
cause  of  her  frightful  obtuseness,  her  sav 
age  ignorance.  She  had  been  at  loss  many 
times ;  she  knew  it,  and  admitted  it  frankly. 
Hotel  life  she  knew  to  the  last  detail  of  its 
gilded  fripperies.  Such  home  life  as  this 
was,  she  had  never  lived  before,  and  there 
was  a  difference.  Yes,  Lorimer  had 
shielded  her  from  the  first;  of  late  his 
deliberate  care,  though  it  grew  no  more 
heavily  shaded,  had  seemed  more  obtrusive 
— last  night  for  instance,  when  he  took  up 
the  race-track  patois  so  glibly! — she 
writhed  in  misery  in  the  dusty  seat. 

And  this  afternoon — surely  there  had 
been  a  chance  for  him  somewhere,  during 
that  last  half  hour;  and  he  had  not  risen  to 
it ;  had  seemed  to  be  seeking  honestly  some 
way,  and  had  found  it  not ;  had  played  the 
conventional  gentleman  with  all  that  finesse 
of  which  he  was  past  master,  and  had  fallen 
far,  far  short  of  the  heights  he  might  have 
reached.  She  had  abased  herself  before 
Reggie's  mother,  but  she  reared  her  head 


CLEM 

proudly  before  Reggie's  friend,  and  both 
attitudes  were  flawlessly  sincere.  She  had 
told  Reggie's  mother,  humbly,  that  she 
was  not  of  their  class,  and  she  had  told 
Lorimer,  with  hot  pride  beating  in  her 
voice,  that,  if  to  be  one  of  them  she  must 
sacrifice  that  breadth  of  outlook  over  life 
which  was  hers,  she  would  never  make  the 
sacrifice.  Reggie  had  that  breadth  of 
view — ignorance,  these  people  called  it — 
he  was  not  spoiled  yet.  But  by  and  by,  and 
very  shortly  too,  he  would  begin  to  see, 
or  rather  cease  from  seeing,  as  this  man 
Lorimer  looked  and  saw  not. 

She  pressed  her  hot  cheek  to  the  cooler 
pane.  She  was  still  flushing,  in  spasms  of 
bitter  shame.  And  her  deepest  shame 
seemed  to  lie,  not  in  her  own  great  lack  of 
that  environment  into  which  this  boy  lover 
of  hers  had  been  born,  as  in  Drake  Lori- 
mer's  lack  of  that  great  humanity  whereby 
he  might  have  seen  more  clearly  the  wrong 
which  had  been  done  her.  She  had  voiced 
it  proudly  to  Mrs.  Wines :  "It  was  n't  fair 
to  me,  but  it  was  fair  to  you  and  to  him !" 


CLEM 

Lorimer  had  felt  dimly  the  unfairness  to 
her  of  this  cruel  test.  If  he  had  but  seen  it 
more  clearly,  as  Reggie  saw  it;  if  he  had 
but  voiced  it,  as  Reggie  voiced  it,  this  bit 
ter  pain  could  not  have  gripped  her  so 
keenly.  Somehow  he  had  failed  himself, 
had  proved  himself  incompetent,  where  he 
should  have  been  capable,  had  just  missed 
mastery  of  that  bitter  hour. 

A  memory  of  Lowe's  half  earnest,  half 
laughing  advice  drifted  through  her  mind; 
advice  which  he  had  thrown  lightly  at  her 
the  morning  after  her  arrival.  "It  would 
be  an  injustice  to  everybody  if  you  go  now. 
Stay  on  and  learn  these  people  a  little  bet 
ter,  and  stay  on  to  let  them  know  you!" 

A  bitter  smile  twisted  her  lips.  She 
might  have  done  every  one  an  injustice  by 
going,  but  in  staying  she,  herself,  had  suf 
fered  the  sorriest  injustice  at  her  own 
hands;  she,  herself,  had  digged  the  pit. 

In  this  retrospection  of  hers  she  did  not 
spare  herself  in  any  way,  and  because  of 
her  pitilessness  to  herself,  she  lost  for  a 
moment  the  larger  view  which  would  have 

[182] 


CLEM 

shown  her  that  she  had  left  behind  her 
humiliation  and  distress,  as  great  in  the 
aggregate,  as  the  burden  thereof  which  she 
was  bearing.  She  could  not  realize,  how 
ever,  how  fundamental  had  been  her  de 
struction  of  convention  and  tradition  and 
the  various  undisturbed  cobwebs  of  social 
customs  and  thought.  It  was  as  if  some 
cosmic  genie  had  brokenly  suddenly  in  upon 
a  little  anthropocentric  group,  and  had 
shown  it  precisely  its  rating  in  the  progress 
of  this  planet  to  ultimate  extinction.  But 
this  she  could  not  know. 

The  trip  to  town  was  a  continuous  suc 
cession  of  exasperating  delays,  and  the 
summer  day  slowly  darkened  into  twilight. 
Once,  half  way  in,  they  were  sidetracked 
half  an  hour,  that  some  special  train  might 
have  right  of  way.  In  any  other  state  of 
mind  she  would  have  chafed  at  the  delays ; 
now  she  did  not  notice  them.  She  was 
wondering  where  she  should  go  for  re 
fuge,  after  she  reached  town.  There  was 
always  their  hotel  suite,  hers  and  her  fa 
ther's  ;  if  she  were  sure  her  father  were  out 


CLEM 

of  town,  she  would  go  there.  But  she 
could  not  endure  the  thought  of  a  possible 
meeting  to-night  with  any  one  she  had 
ever  seen  before.  She  thought  of  other 
hotels.  She  thought  vaguely  of  a  last 
alternative,  a  swift  departure  for  any  point 
whose  distance  away  made  a  night's  jour 
ney.  She  would  call  up  their  hotel  in  any 
case;  but  if  her  father  should  be  there,  if 
she  were  to  be  compelled  to  meet  him,  to 
face  his  interested,  eager  queries  about  her 
country  visit — she  felt  a  fever  which  was 
almost  madness  seize  her.  She  must  have 
solitude  at  any  price — at  any  price.  Her 
world  was  in  chaos,  and  its  dust  was  chok 
ing  her. 

When  the  train,  delayed,  belated,  came 
to  a  stop  at  last  under  the  station  shed,  she 
realized  that  she  was  weakened  and  worn 
with  her  fierce  gusts  of  shame  and  anger. 
There  was  no  porter  near  her,  and  she 
slowly  gathered  up  her  belongings.  Sta 
tion  after  staticfn  had  added  its  quota  to  the 
mass  of  people  who  were  traveling  city 
ward  to-night,  and  she  waited  until  most 


CLEM 

of  her  fellow  travelers  were  out  of  the  car 
before  she  stepped  upon  its  platform.  Al 
most  the  last  one,  she  followed  the  sub 
urbanites  as  they  scattered  along  the  floor 
and  through  the  gates.  Her  eyes  were 
black  with  weariness,  and  widened  with 
her  mental  daze.  She  went  stolidly  after 
the  crowd,  looking  neither  to  the  right  nor 
to  the  left.  Her  natural  shock,  therefore, 
was  very  great,  when,  feeling  her  arm  laid 
hold  of  gently,  she  turned  and  looked  into 
Lowe's  face. 

She  stared  at  him  almost  stupidly.  It 
was  he,  definitely,  whom  she  had  planned 
to  avoid  meeting,  by  taking  that  five  o'clock 
train.  And  here  he  stood,  patiently  wait 
ing  for  her!  She  became  aware  then  that 
it  was  Lowe  who  had  been  leaning  against 
the  gate  directly  ahead  of  her,  busied  with 
scanning  closely  the  faces  of  the  train's 
passengers.  She  had  seen  him  without  rec 
ognizing  him  at  all;  his  heavy  head,  with 
its  heavy  features  usually  subtly  lighted 
by  their  own  peculiar,  jolly  gleam  of  good 
humor.  But  to-night  there  was  no  jollity, 

[1853 


CLEM 

no  irradiating  gleam.  As  she  continued  to 
look  into  his  eyes,  her  face  paled  sicken- 
ingly,  and  a  great  fear  gripped  her. 

"What  is  it?"  she  whispered,  "tell  me, 
quick!" 

"I  came  down  on  the  six  o'clock  train, 
to  catch  you  here,  if  possible,"  said  Lowe 
swiftly.  "I  've  been  waiting  fifteen  min 
utes  for  you.  You  must  come  back,  Clem, 
on  that  train  yonder.  Reggie  is  badly 
wounded.  There  must  be  an  operation, 
and  the  outcome  is  doubtful.  He  sent  me 
for  you.  It  was  a  pistol  shot;  a  bad  ab 
dominal  wound.  You  will  come,  Clem — 
Clem,  you  must !  The  doctors  are  here  al 
ready,  and  the  nurses,  on  the  train.  We 
must  get  back— quickly." 


XIII 

SHE  could  not  have  been  persuaded  be 
fore  that  he  could  be  so  gentle,  so  con 
siderate.  She  found  his  arm  was  strung 
with  steel  as  she,  in  her  great  shock, 
swayed  against  him.  He  led  her  aside 
from  the  straggling  crowd,  and  into  a  re 
tired  corner  of  the  waiting-room.  There, 
as  if  she  were  a  child,  he  put  her  into  a 
seat,  and  then  stood  over  her,  his  hand 
placed  firmly  on  her  shoulders,  that  thick, 
powerful  hand  with  its  thick  short  fingers, 
which  could  grip  his  brushes  so  master 
fully. 

"That  's  right,"  he  said  after  a  moment. 
His  voice  held  a  note  of  courageous  cheer. 
"That  's  right.  Brace  up,  for  the  sake  of 
them  all,  back  yonder,  waiting  for  you, 
Clem,  as  you  were  never  waited  for  and 
needed  yet." 

"Reggie  shot!"  she  whispered,  for  sole 


CLEM 

reply.     "You  're  not  keeping  things  back 
—he  's  not  dead — yet?" 

"He  was  living  ten  minutes  ago,"  Lowe 
said  gently.  "I  got  them  by  telephone  as 
soon  as  my  train  got  in.  His  one  cry  is  for 
you — when  he  's  conscious." 

"It  's  very  serious  ?"     The  girl's  voice  * 
was  shaking. 

"Poor  youngster,  yes.  This  is  what  we 
know :  Virginia  heard  the  cry  first,  and  ran 
to  his  room.  He  seems  to  have  been  busy 
with  guns  and  pistols,  cleaning  them— 
there  were  several  of  his  favorites  scat 
tered  round — he  managed  to  say  that  he 
was  just  starting  on  a  hunting  trip — " 

"Oh,  my  God!"  she  groaned.  She  closed 
her  eyes,  and  then  opened  them  wide,  star 
ing  dizzily  into  Lowe's  steady,  com 
prehending  ones.  Before  she  could  speak, 
he  gripped  her  shoulder  harder. 

"Don't  call  up  horrors !"  he  commanded 
sternly.  "Listen:  We  got  help  from  the 
Goodwin's — they  have  a  young  cub  of  a 
doctor  staying  there  this  week — he  was 
over  and  hard  at  work  before  I  left.  Reg- 


CLEM 

gie  was  conscious  when  Vee  found  him, 
and  at  intervals  afterward,  they  told  me 
over  the  telephone.  He  says  over  and 
over,  that  it  was  an  accident  pure  and 
simple,  another  case  of  not  knowing  the 
bullet  was  there." 

He  paused  again,  too  long,  for  the 
silence  suddenly  wrecked  Clem's  nerves, 
and  she  began  to  shiver  violently,  in  the 
warmth  of  the  summer  evening.  Her  face 
dropped  into  her  hands. 

"Oh,  that  mother  of  his!"  she  sobbed 
brokenly.  "How  she  hates  me — how  she 
hates  me — hates  me!" 

For  a  moment  Lowe  stood  helpless,  look 
ing  down  at  her  bent  head.  He  was  re 
calling  Reggie's  desperate  gaspings  as  he 
lay  on  his  bed,  still  conscious,  giving  his 
imperious  orders: 

"Every  man  's  been  the  Gaderene  swine 
in  this  business,  but  she  's  got  to  come  back. 
She  's  got  to  come  back.  There  's  a  lot 
she  don't  understand.  Drake  's  no  good — 
she  sees  through  him — you  're  the  one, 
Jack.  Bring  her  back,  to-night." 


CLEM 

And  Lowe  had  set  out  on  his  journey, 
with  an  indignation  which  every  moment 
fanned  to  deeper  flaming.  The  girl  had 
not  met  with  fair  play — and  would  not; 
there  lay  the  pity  of  the  thing.  Before  he 
left  he  had  been  forced  to  listen  to  the 
half-frenzied  mother's  protests  against  the 
bringing  back  into  her  home  of  the  girl 
whom  she  firmly  believed  had  sent  her  boy 
to  his  death.  He  had  left  the  house  in 
deed,  in  the  face  of  those  protests,  and 
under  orders  from  the  young  physician, 
who  hushed  the  mother  at  last  with  his 
hard  mandate  that  no  slightest  chance  for 
recovery  must  be  let  slip. 

He  glanced  at  his  watch.  The  girl 
might  have  ten  minutes  more  before  the 
express  left,  in  which  to  get  hold  of 
herself.  She  was  still  shivering  convul 
sively.  His  hand  tightened  again  on  her 
shoulder. 

"The  boy  is  a  dead  game  shot,"  he  said 
quietly.  "And  this  wound  is  a  hideous 
abdominal  affair.  You  and  I  can  read  from 
that.  If  he  had  gone  off  his  head  so  far, 


CLEM 

he  'd  have  made  better  work  of  it,  because 
he  would  know  how.  The  thing  in  itself 
spells  accident.  I  ought  to  tell  you  that  his 
mother  reads  it  otherwise — yet.  But  one 
can  excuse  anything  in  her  now — he  is  all 
she  has.  When  you  see  her  face,  you  will 
be  as  merciful  in  your  judgment  as  she  is 
merciless.  I  've  arranged  for  a  compart 
ment  for  you — the  surgeons  and  nurses 
are  going  with  us,  but  you  don't  have  to 
meet  any  of  them  unless  you  want  to.  Can 
you  come,  now?" 

She  roused  herself  at  last,  and  plied  him 
with  eager  questions  as  they  crossed  over 
to  their  train.  As  they  drew  near  she 
caught  sight  of  two  gray-garbed  nurses, 
and  of  three  professional-looking  men 
standing  near  the  steps.  As  they  looked 
curiously  at  her,  she  dropped  her  veil 
quickly,  and  she  shook  her  head  at  a  query 
of  Lowe's. 

"No,  no.  I  can't  be  decent  to  anybody 
now*  Let  me  hide  here  alone.  When  we 
reach  the  station,  come  and  get  me — I  '11 
be  braced  by  then.  No,  no,  I  could  n't 

C'9'3 


CLEM 

swallow  anything-.  I  can  get  something- 
there  !"  Her  hesitation  was  marked. 

He  took  her  to  her  compartment,  lowered 
a  light  for  her,  closed  one  window,  raised 
another,  and  left  a  magazine  lying  on  a 
chair  seat.  "I  '11  send  you  in  a  cup  of  clam 
broth,  anyway,"  he  told  her  quietly.  "Try 
to  drink  it."  Then  the  door  closed  behind 
him. 

She  sank  back  into  her  seat,  too  dazed 
and  horrified  for  clear  thought.  Only  one 
definite  concept  had  been  in  her  mind  since 
Lowe  had  told  his  tale;  Reggie's  face, 
white  and  desperate,  as  she  had  last  looked 
on  it.  And  ringing  in  her  ears  were  the 
words  which  only  she  and  the  sheltering 
trees  had  heard :  "There  's  nothing  left  in 
life,  Clem,  if  you  deliberately  jilt  me  this 
way — I  'm  going  to  shake  hands  with  the 
devil  and  his  friends !"  They  were  his  last 
words,  all  but  shouted  back  at  her,  as  he 
turned  away  at  last,  and  strode  across  the 
spongy  carpet  of  pine-needles,  thickly 
matted.  At  the  time  she  had  thought 
the  words  held  merely  pain  and  cut  pride; 


CLEM 

it  might  be  that  she  could  yet  believe 
that  was  all  they  held,  but  her  doubts 
were  terrible.  She  tried  to  get  the  mem 
ory  of  Lowe's  recital  out  of  her  mind — 
it  troubled  her  horribly — but  the  fascina 
tion  of  it  was  more  powerful  than  her 
shrinking  from  it,  and  she  lived,  one 
by  one,  each  separate  scene  which  Lowe, 
in  reply  to  her  pressing  questions,  had 
briefly  sketched.  She  seemed  to  see  Vir 
ginia  rushing  upon  the  boy  as  he  crouched 
in  his  chair,  with  the  smoking  revolver  still 
in  his  hand ;  to  see  Dell  and  Gresham  com 
ing  swiftly  at  her  call ;  to  see  the  maddened 
mother  as  she  rushed  up  from  the  library, 
the  room  which,  in  all  probability,  she  had 
not  quitted  since  she,  Clem  Merrit,  had 
left  the  house.  She  shivered  over  the 
hurried  diagnosis  which  the  young  physi 
cian  had  made:  an  abdominal  wound  with 
the  bullet's  course  an  unknown  quantity; 
and  then,  with  a  swift  revulsion  of  feel 
ing,  she  recalled  the  two  practical,  gray- 
garbed  women,  and  the  three  cool,  self- 
contained  surgeons  who  were  her  travel- 

C'93] 


CLEM 

ing  companions,  and  she  shuddered  anew 
at  the  thought  of  them,  hewers  and  cutters 
of  men. 

Time  and  again  she  tried  bravely  to  rally 
her  courage,  but  the  awful  coincidence  of 
things,  and  the  circumstantiality  of  the 
tragedy,  cowed  her.  That  it  should  have 
occurred  this  evening — she  could  hardly 
have  left  the  house  before  the  tragedy 
befell !  She  seemed  to  know  perfectly  well 
what  was  being  whispered  and  surmised  in 
that  shadowed  home  toward  which  she  was 
speeding.  Her  consenting  to  go  back  into 
it — it  was  the  least  thing  she  could  do,  of 
course,  and  yet  the  greatest  thing !  To  face 
all  of  them  again ;  to  endure  all  their  curi 
ous  conjecturings :  to  stand  beside  that 
stricken  mother  through  all  the  critical 
hours  to  come;  to  look  on,  perhaps,  while 
Death  reached  out  relentless  hands  and 
took  the  only  treasure  of  that  widowed 
mother's  life;  to  know  that  in  such  case 
the  mother  would  go  down  to  her  grave, 
calling  her,  Clem  Merrit,  the  slayer  of  her 
boy — 


CLEM 

She  heard  Lowe's  voice  calling  to  her,  a 
great  way  off,  and  she  struggled  upward 
through  stratum  after  stratum  of  dimmed 
consciousness,  to  find  him  shaking  her  anx 
iously.  She  looked  at  him  at  last  with 
clearing  vision,  and  then  she  leaned  back 
with  a  sigh,  and  pressed  her  hand  hard 
against  her  aching  eyes. 

"Don't  go  away  from  me  again!"  she 
begged  piteously.  "I  '11  be  steadied  in  a 
minute;  but  don't  leave  me  alone  any 
more !" 

"You  've  been  living  through  the  hor 
rors,  poor  girl !"  Lowe  said.  "Here  's  your 
broth.  I  know  it  's  strong  because  I  went 
out  to  see  about  it  myself,  and  here  's 
some  fairly  decent  sherry.  Drink  them 
both — Clem,  you  must." 

While  she  sipped  the  wine,  he  stood  be 
side  her,  looking  down  at  her  with  a  puz 
zled  anger  still  burning  in  his  eyes.  He 
wished  greatly  that  Mrs.  Wines  might  see 
the  girl  now,  sore  beset  and  all  but  fainting. 
He  was  very  sure  that  Mrs.  Wines  would 
not  see  her  so  of  Clem's  volition ;  that,  be- 


CLEM 

fore  that  lady,  Clem  would  rally  her 
great  courage  to  play  well  the  new  hand 
which  had  been  dealt  her.  But  he  wished 
that  the  girl  might  be  seen  by  those  un 
friendly  eyes  as  he  saw  her  now,  weak  and 
dependent  and  sunk  in  pathetic  sorrow. 
To  one  who  had  never  seen  her  so,  and 
had  never  imagined  her  so,  it  was  a  reve 
lation. 

She  handed  him  the  wine-glass  with  a 
weary  shake  of  her  head. 

"You  're  disgusted  with  me,  Jack.  So 
am  I  with  myself.  Give  me  that  clam 
stuff.  What  a  weakling  I  am!" 

Lowe  sat  down  opposite  her,  balancing 
the  flower-like  wine-glass  in  his  heavy 
hand  with  a  touch  as  light  as  a  surgeon's. 
A  French  dictum  ran  through  his  head 
which  he  forebore  to  quote:  "Caesar  was 
never  so  powerful  as  when  he  lay  a 
corpse!"  He  had  seen  Clem  Merrit  in 
many  a  situation,  and  had  found  her  inter 
esting  in  them  all,  and  mistress  of  them 
all,  until  this  lamentable  thing  v/as  forced 
upon  her ;  and  now,  broken  as  he  had  never 


CLEM 

imagined  her,  she  had  never  appealed  to 
him  so  strongly. 

"I  must  have  been  faint  for  want  of 
food,"  Clem  said  at  last,  after  she  had 
drained  the  cup.  "No,  nothing  more, 
please.  But  I  did  n't — have  much  lunch 
eon  to-day,  and  this  news  coming  on  top  of 
everything — Jack,  it  seems  a  thousand 
years  since  I  woke  this  morning!" 

She  leaned  toward  him,  her  elbow  rest 
ing  on  the  chair  arm,  and  her  face  sunk  in 
her  palm.  Her  voice  was  growing  steadier 
under  the  influence  of  the  stimulants  Lowe 
had  urged  upon  her. 

"You  don't  believe  it  was  suicide,  do 
you  ?"  she  asked  him  simply. 

"Good  God,  no!"  Lowe  replied  irritably. 
"He  's  too  sane  a  brute.  It 's  all  rot,  every 
one  knows  it.  Listen  to  me :  there  's  not  a 
soul  down  there  who  really  thinks  that,  but 
his  mother,  and  she  's  half  mad,  poor  soul ! 
Of  course,  it  's  hanging  in  the  atmosphere, 
because  of  her  fixed  belief  and  the  whole 
cursed  set  of  circumstances.  But  she  's 
alone  in  her  delusion.  The  rest  of  us — " 


CLEM 

Clem  looked  at  him  with  a  faintly  bitter 
smile.  "The  rest  of  you!"  she  breathed. 
"Oh,  these  surmisings  and  gossipings — 
they  drive  one  mad !" 

"Well,  now,"  drawled  Lowe  soothingly, 
"you  must  grant,  out  of  your  just  heart, 
that  appearances  have  been  provocative  of 
conjecture  and  surmise.  But  you  could  n't 
ever  marry  that  young  cub,  Clem." 

"No,"  she  assented.  "I  could  n't  ever 
marry  him." 

There  was  something  in  her  voice  which 
made  Lowe  bend  toward  her  in  the  half- 
dim  light.  He  had  been  in  no  one's  confi 
dence,  and  yet  he  knew,  as  did  all  of  them 
at  The  Pines,  the  main  outlines  of  the  lit 
tle  comedy  which  had  resolved  itself  into 
such  bitter  tragedy.  Until  now  he  had 
hardly  been  able  to  believe  that  the  infatu 
ation  had  been  anything  but  one-sided. 
All  who  loitered  might  read  Reggie's 
charming  story,  but,  knowing  Clem  Mer- 
rit  as  he  knew  her,  he  had  not  believed  that 
the  affair  had  ever  been  as  serious  a  thing 
on  either  side  as  Mrs.  Wines  had  made  of 
CI983 


CLEM 

it.  A  swift  sentence  leaped  to  his  lips, 
born  of  his  whispered  speech  with  Reggie 
two  hours  before — it  was  said  before  he 
knew  it,  and  he  pondered  over  that  strange 
prompting  to  garrulity  for  many  hours  in 
the  days  succeeding. 

"The  boy  is  mad  about  you;  he  may 
bring  you  face  to  face  with  the  question  of 
immediate  marriage — forgive  me!  He 
said  as  much." 

"Before  his  mother?" 

Lowe  nodded,  mute. 

Clem  turned  her  face  away  until  he 
could  see  only  its  pure,  fine  outline  in  the 
shadow. 

"Tell  her — when  she  speaks  to  you 
about  that — and  she  will — that  I  '11  let 
him  die,  hers,  before  I  '11  save  him  that 
way."  Her  voice  quivered  with  fine  vibra 
tions. 

Lowe  sat  back,  in  silence,  conscious  that 
he  was  treading  on  dangerously  delicate 
ground.  He  knew  but  little  of  the  particu 
lars  of  this  story,  but  he  knew  that  in  it 
the  boy  had  played  the  minor  part,  that 


CLEM 

the  two  women  had  all  the  lines  and  all 
the  business;  and  it  bore  all  the  earmarks 
of  a  woman's  handling,  of  that  he  was 
quite  cynically  aware. 

She  turned  to  him  at  last,  with  her  pal 
lid  face  tremulous  with  feeling.  "Don't 
talk  us  over  with  any  of  them,  Jack,"  she 
said.  "Let  me  feel  that  there  's  one  per 
son  in  that  house  who  is  n't  playing  the 
waiting  cat.  Since  he  's  said  so  much  to 
you — I  was  engaged  to  Reggie  Wines 
three  weeks  ago.  His  mother  asked  me 
down  yonder,  and  I  went !  And  I  broke  the 
engagement  this  afternoon,  and  I  told  her 
so  before  I  left.  And  now,  in  three  hours' 
time,  I  '11  be  back  there,  facing  her  again, 
across  Reggie — " 

"The  only  gossiping  I  've  done  of  you 
and  Reggie  has  been  done  just  now,"  said 
Lowe  with  a  slight  smile.  "And,  since 
you  and  I  have  disposed  of  the  subject,  I 
can  heartily  assure  you  it  will  be  the  last. 
I  am  the  farthest  remove  possible  from  a 
waiting  cat.  Let  me  rather,  to  your  mind, 
play  the  part  of  the  faithful  Fido,  Clem, 

[zoo] 


CLEM 

— and,  in  addition,  your  very  sincere 
friend!" 

He  glanced  out  of  the  window  at  the 
dark,  fleeing  landscape,  and  reached  down 
for  Clem's  hand-bag.  The  girl's  face 
paled,  and  her  heart  began  to  beat  with 
slow,  dull  throbbings  as  the  train  slowed 
down  to  let  off  this  group  at  a  station 
where  otherwise  it  would  not  have  paused. 
Before  their  car  had  ceased  its  grinding 
tremors,  Lowe  hurried  her  down  its  steps, 
after  the  nurses  and  surgeons,  and  then 
bore  her  with  a  quick  rush  across  the  sta 
tion  platform  toward  the  touring-car, 
Reggie's  favorite,  which  pulsed  in  waiting 
for  them.  The  fact  that  their  traveling 
companions  were  already  there,  waiting 
for  her,  brought  home  to  her  more  viv 
idly  than  the  great  leaps  forward  of  the 
car,  as  it  started  on  its  journey  for  the 
saving  of  life,  the  fact  that  moments  did 
mean  life  and  death,  and  that  it  was  really 
Reggie  who  was  lying  all  but  mortally  hurt 
a  brief  three  miles  ahead  of  them. 

There  was  no  attempt  at  introduction, 


CLEM 

and  Clem  sank  back,  with  veiled  face,  an 
object  of  furtive  interest  to  the  five  stran 
gers  who  glanced  at  her  many  times  during 
the  three  miles'  run.  The  woman  in  any 
case  is  always  interesting,  and  they  guessed 
enough  of  the  story  to  make  them  sure  that 
this  beautiful  girl  was  quite  as  necessary 
as  the  nurses  to  the  young  man's  recovery. 

They  came  to  a  swinging  stop  at  last  be 
fore  the  dusky  house.  Every  night  before, 
the  lights  had  blazed  from  every  window. 
To-night  the  lower  part  of  the  house  was 
only  dimly  lighted.  Across  the  upper  win 
dows  shadowy  figures  moved  from  time  to 
time,  hurrying,  and  eager.  A  single,  soli 
tary  figure  awaited  them  at  the  entrance. 

Clem  was  sitting  nearest  the  steps  when 
the  car  stopped,  and  it  was  Lorimer  who 
helped  her  out.  She  shrank  from  him  vis 
ibly  as  he  touched  her.  He  still  held  her 
hands  as  he  turned  to  Lowe  and  spoke 
rapidly : 

"They  have  already  arranged  the  bil 
liard-room,  under  Housman's  directions, 
for  the  operating-room.  Will  you  take 


CLEM 

them  up  there,  Jack  ?  Dell  will  see  to  any 
thing  you  want.  His  mother  has  been 
kept  from  him  as  much  as  possible,  because 
of  her  own  condition." 

He  waited  until  the  ominous  group  dis 
appeared  within  the  entrance  door,  and 
then  he  turned  back  to  Clem.  She  had 
definitely  drawn  her  hands  away  from 
him;  he  still  felt  their  coldness  lingering, 
like  a  chill,  upon  his  own. 

"I  don't  know  how  to  tell  you,  and  I 
must  tell  you,"  he  began  incoherently,  his 
face  somewhat  drawn  with  the  strain  of 
the  day's  events.  "You  will  blame  me  for 
ever  if  I  don't.  Mrs.  Wines—" 

Clem  moved  away  from  him.  With  his 
words,  the  very  sound  of  his  voice,  her 
poise  came  back,  and  her  quivering  nerves 
grew  still. 

"Don't  tell  it,"  she  said  deliberately. 
"Mr.  Lowe  has  prepared  me." 

"On  its  face  it  is  unpardonable,"  Lori- 
mer  stammered.  "But  if  you  could  only 
realize  the  frenzy  of  her  grief  and  her  de 
spair — she  is  hardly  sane — " 


CLEM 

"I  can  make  more  excuses  for  her  than 
you  can,"  Clem  interrupted.  "I  'm  noth 
ing-,  now,  but  an  inexperienced  nurse,  here 
for  no  reason  but  because  I  Ve  been  sent 
for." 

"I  have  tried  to  make  her  see  you — to 
make  her  spare  you — "  Lorimer  continued 
with  an  impetuous  defense,  blundering  as 
he  had  never  blundered  in  all  his  faultless 
life  before.  He  swore  at  himself,  under 
his  breath,  for  his  crassness. 

Clem  moved  further  yet  away  from 
him,  until  she  was  leaning  against  a  pil 
lar,  the  same  pillar  against  which  she  had 
crouched  not  twenty-four  hours  before, 
under  the  eyes  of  this  self-same  man.  Her 
blue  eyes  looked  brightly  on  him. 

"Don't  try  to  spare  me— ever  again," 
she  said  distinctly.  "  I  'm  not  grateful. 
No,  thanks.  I  Ve  not  been  sent  for  yet. 
Until  the  doctors  want  me,  there  's  no  rea 
son  why  I  should  go  inside." 

Her  eyes  were  blazing  and  her  lip 
curled  again.  Every  instinct  to  haughty 
pride  was  alive  within  her.  Her  veins 

[2043 


CLEM 

were  running  warm  blood  now,  and  with 
every  moment  she  seemed  to  grow  more 
dangerously  alive.  Lorimer  looked  on  her 
in  vain  search  for  the  studied  calm  she  had 
manifested  before,  for  that  reasonable 
good  sense  which  had  marked  almost  every 
previous  act  and  speech  of  hers.  He  was 
still  writhing  under  the  calculated  lashes 
she  had  dealt  him  three  hours  back ;  and  he 
writhed  vicariously  for  his  class  when  he 
saw  the  contempt  which  leaped  to  her  eyes 
as  she  learned  that  her  hostess  refused  to 
yield  to  what  savages  would  make  courte 
ous  necessity.  He  appreciated  keenly  her 
refusal  to  enter  the  house  until  she  was 
summoned  for  the  one  purpose  for  which 
she  had  come. 

He  walked  away  a  few  steps,  and  then 
he  came  quickly  back  to  her.  His  face 
was  whiter,  and  his  eyes  were  gleaming 
with  a  rather  dangerous  light. 

"We  have  passed  through  a  trying  or 
deal,  all  of  us,"  he  said  with  a  touch  of  bit 
terness.  "Grant  me  that  much.  All  of  'it 
has  been  a  mistake,  and  of  the  mistake  no 


CLEM 

one  is  more  keenly  aware  than  the  ones 
who  are  to  blame  for  it — " 

She  laughed  grimly.  "You  're  too  gen 
erous  !"  she  said.  "It  was  a  woman's  trick. 
No  man  could  have  planned  that  sort  of 
thing,  and  carried  it  out  to  the  end.  I 
never  accused  you  of  that." 

"Then  don't  accuse  me  of  trying  to 
spare  you — anything!"  he  retorted.  "I 
think  that  I  must  have  put  it  very  badly. 
I  was  beseeching  your  pity  for  that  boy's 
mother.  Spare  her,  of  your  mercy!" 

Clem's  head  went  up  swiftly,  but  in  that 
moment  Lowe  came  quickly  through  the 
doors,  and  up  to  her. 

"He  wants  to  see  you,  Clem,"  he  said. 
"The  surgeons  will  be  ready  in  ten  min 
utes,  and  that  time  is  to  be  his  and  yours. 
Drake,  keep  his  mother  away  by  any 
means.  Dell  says  she  's  unnerved,  and  the 
boy  could  think  of  nothing  but  death  if  she 
came  to  him  now,  on  the  eve  of  the  opera 
tion.  Tell  her  he  's  unconscious.  Tell  her 
anything  you  think  of.  Now,  Clem !" 

Clem  unpinned  her  hat,  and  cast  it  and 


CLEM 

her  summer  coat  on  a  chair  beside  her.  In 
her  simple  linen  dress,  she  looked  as  if  she 
might  have  just  returned  from  a  twilight 
stroll.  With  her  head  wonderfully  poised, 
she  followed  Lowe's  heavy  figure  and  cat 
like  tread  up  the  shadowy  stairs.  And 
after  them  Lorimer  followed,  doggedly. 
He  watched  with  somber  eyes  Clem's  dull 
blue  skirts  trail  softly  through  the  upper 
hall  as  she  walked  with  Lowe  toward  the 
door  of  Reggie's  room.  Before  that 
closed  door  she  paused  a  moment,  and  laid 
her  hand  heavily  on  Lowe's  arm.  He  bent 
toward  her,  whispering  a  few  words  of 
cheer,  and  she  nodded  silently.  Then  the 
boy's  door  opened,  and  Dell  came  out. 
She  uttered  a  smothered  little  cry,  and 
caught  Clem  in  a  close  embrace;  then  she 
pushed  the  girl  gently  into  the  room,  and 
shut  the  door  upon  her. 


XIV 

went  swiftly  across  the  room, 
toward  the  wide-eyed  boy  lying  on  his 
bed,  waiting  for  her.  As  she  saw  the 
white  face,  her  heart  gave  one  slow,  pain 
ful  throb,  and  Reggie,  watching  her  hun 
grily,  caught  sight  of  the  pain  reflected  in 
her  eyes,  and  knew  the  cause  thereof. 

"It  does  n't  hurt—  so  beastly— bad !"  he 
whispered  reassuringly,  as  he  put  up  one 
strengthless  hand  to  her  face,  and  tried  to 
draw  it  down  to  his.  "It  's — no  fun;  but 
they  Ve  given  me  some  stuff  that  's  going 
to  my  head  already — I  did  n't  want  that, 
not  till  after  you  'd  come,  but  they  fired  it 
into  me,  because  I  'm  down.  Clem,  it  was 
all  my  fault — I  've  been  a  fool—" 

She  raised  her  head  from  where  it  lay 
against  his  cheek,  and  her  arms  tightened 
about  him  in  a  spasm  of  fear.  Her  doubts 
[208] 


CLEM 

all  but  found  utterance.  But  she  caught 
the  moan  back  heroically. 

"What  about,  dear  ?"  she  whispered,  her 
lips  white  with  dread. 

"You— this— everything!  Clem,  you 
did  n't  mean  it — what  you  said  out  yonder, 
under  the  pines,  a  thousand  years  ago — 
Ever  since  they  dragged  me  here  and  laid 
me  down,  I  've  known  you  could  n't  have 
meant  it.  I  was  crazy,  furious,  maddened 
— up  to  the  time  the  shot  went  home — 
then,  somehow,  things  cleared — I  saw  then 
you  could  n't  have  meant  it — it  was  so 
beautiful— it  had  to  last— but  you  laughed 
once,  under  that  ghastly  tree,  a  thousand 
years  ago — and  the  sound  of  your  laugh 
filled  me  with  madness— you  did  n't  mean 
it?" 

"No,  no !"  Clem  whispered.  "I  did  n't 
mean  it !  Not  that  way,  Reggie." 

"So  I  came  back  here — just  in  time  to 
see  you  going  away — and  I  came  up  here, 
and  got  out  my  guns  and  things — to  make 
my  choice — I  was  a  fool,  Clem— I  ought 
to  have  faced  you  down  and  out — if  I  ever 


CLEM 

get  up  from  this,  I  know  I  can.  Or  if  I  'd 
ever  been  in  love  with  a  girl  before — 
you  're  such  a  crazy  lot,  all  of  you! — but  I 
picked  up  that  automatic  pistol— there  was 
a  trick  about  the  trigger  I  did  n't  under 
stand,  and  when  the  thing  blew  up,  it 
landed  in  a  bad  place,  darling." 

"Reggie,  Reggie!"  the  girl  whispered. 
She  raised  her  head  and  looked  into  his 
eyes.  He  had  sunk  back,  deep  into  his  pil 
lows,  his  face  contracted  with  a  slight 
spasm  of  pain. 

"Reggie !"  she  murmured  again,  desper 
ately.  "You  did  n't—  '  then  she  drew 
back,  still  staring  into  the  boy's  fast  dim 
ming  eyes ;  whether  she  was  wise  or  ex 
ceeding  unwise  she  did  not  know.  "Do 
you  know  what  all  of  them  out  yonder 
think,  Reggie — that  you  did  it  on  pur 
pose— 

The  boy  frowned.  "No,  they  don't,"  he 
said  shortly.  "When  I  found  I  was  n't 
dead,  I  told  'em  over  and  over  that  it  was 
an  accident.  They  can't  think  anything 
else — I  told  Jack  to  tell  you  that.  But  I 
[210] 


CLEM 

wanted  to  see  you  alone,  to  tell  you  the 
truth — what  a  damn  fool  I  've  been,  dar 
ling,  and  to  make  you — marry  me  now, 
Clem.  They  're  going  to  operate,  they  say 
— is  it — very  serious?" 

His  voice  was  thick  now,  and  his  mut 
tered  words  were  hardly  coherent.  "Is  it 
very  serious?"  he  repeated.  Again  her 
arms  tightened  about  him. 

"It  must  n't  be,  dear,"  she  murmured. 
"You  're  so  big  and  strong  and  well — " 

He  interrupted  fretfully.  "I  wish  I 
could  stand  things  without  ether.  I  hate 
dope.  I  like  to  know  what  's  happening — 
Anyway  I  want  more  time,  and  a  clear 
head,  since  we  've  got  things  straightened 
out  between  us — before  they  dump  me  in 
yonder,  and  begin  to  work— that  's  just 
why  I  did  n't  want  'em  to  give  me  that  first 
dose-" 

His  voice  trailed  off  into  incoherency. 
Clem  glanced  up  from  her  agonized  gaz 
ing,  as  a  bright  shaft  of  light  fell  across 
the  foot  of  the  bed  through  an  open  door. 
The  white-clad  figure  of  one  of  the  sur- 


CLEM 

geons  stood  in  the  doorway,  and  through  it 
one  of  the  nurses,  white-clad  too,  came 
quickly,  bearing  the  merciful  ether  cone. 
Clem  bent  over  the  boy  and  kissed  him  pas 
sionately. 

"Shut  your  eyes,  dear,"  she  whispered 
unsteadily,  "for  a  quiet  nap,  and  when  you 
wake  up,  everything  is  going  to  be  all 
right." 

DURING  the  hour  through  which  the  op 
eration  endured,  Clem  waited  in  the  upper 
hall,  with  Lowe  and  Lorimer  and  Gresham. 
Dell  and  Virginia  were  with  the  mother, 
whose  convulsive  moans  pierced  the  tense 
stillness  of  the  house  at  irregular  and 
nerve-racking  intervals. 

Through  it  all  Clem  sat  silent,  hardly 
moving,  save  to  shield  her  face  at  times 
with  her  hand.  Those  were  invariably  the 
moments  when  Lowe,  watching  her  unob 
trusively,  came  over  to  her,  rescuing  her 
from  herself  with  some  message  from  the 
operating-room,  or  some  word  of  cheer. 
Most  of  the  time,  however,  she  sat  with  her 


CLEM 

head  thrown  back  against  her  chair,  sick 
and  faint  with  suspense.  Once,  when  her 
eyes  had  been  closed  for  a  space  of  time 
whose  measuring  she  did  not  know,  she 
was  roused  by  a  touch  on  her  arm,  and 
looked  up  dizzily  to  find  Lorimer  standing 
over  her  with  a  glass  of  wine  in  his  hand. 
She  took  it  gratefully,  for  she  was  all  but 
swooning,  as  she  very  well  knew,  but  she 
found  no  word  of  thanks  for  his  thought 
of  her.  After  that  she  did  not  dare  close 
her  eyes  for  fear  of  slipping  into  uncon 
sciousness — this  hour  of  inaction  and  im 
aginings  was  sapping  her  strength.  She 
kept  her  hold  of  consciousness  by  watch 
ing,  with  wide,  bright  eyes,  Lorimer's  rest 
less  tramping  up  and  down  the  length  of 
the  hall,  whose  monotony  he  broke  with 
many  purposeless  exits  on  to  the  broad, 
second-story  veranda  which  lay  along  the 
eastern  side  of  the  house ;  by  keeping  con 
scientious  record  of  Lowe's  rapidly  smoked 
cigarettes;  by  making  careful  note  of 
Gresham's  ungraceful  contortions.  The 
faint,  sickish  odor  of  anesthetics,  and  the 


CLEM 

pungent  smell  of  antiseptics  crept  into  the 
hall,  and  stirred  her  vivid  brain  to  keener, 
more  unendurable  imaginings. 

But  the  long  hours  dragged  themselves 
out  at  last,  and  Clem  was  called  again  to 
Reggie's  room.  She  went,  feeling  like  a 
guilty  thing.  If  only  he  would  ask  for  his 
mother,  for  Dell,  Virginia,  for  any  other 
woman  in  the  house!  Yet,  when  she  en 
tered  the  room,  and  saw  his  white  face,  and 
heard  his  murmured  call  for  her,  she  lost 
sight  of  everything  but  him  and  his  wel 
fare.  Reggie's  recovery — and  he  had  his 
chance,  even  though  the  chances  against 
him  were  great— was  all  that  mattered  to 
her  from  that  moment.  Every  shred  of 
self-consciousness  fell  away  from  her  in 
that  moment,  and  she  felt  herself  revivified 
with  a  rush  of  self-confidence  which  was 
old  and  yet  new.  Reggie  had  need  of  her 
in  his  sore  stress.  Whatever  circumstances 
had  led  to  this  state  of  affairs,  she  had  her 
vital  place  in  this  circle  of  people  at  last. 
And  as  she  realized,  instantaneously  with 
the  boy's  muttered  call  for  her,  how  in- 


CLEM 

dispensable  she  was,  all  thought  of  the 
others  fell  away,  and  she  gave  herself, 
with  a  wonderfully  vital  concentration,  to 
one  solemn  purpose — the  saving  of  this 
boy's  life.  Nothing  else  mattered;  and 
when  she  bent  over  him,  in  all  her  glorious 
strength  of  mind  and  body,  she  seemed, 
even  to  the  weary  little  group  of  surgeons 
and  nurses,  nothing  less  than  a  giver  of 
life. 


XV 

A  ND  she  seemed  nothing  less  than  that  to 
-£jk-  Lorimer,  when  they  met,  face  to  face, 
early  the  next  morning,  in  the  shadowy  up 
per  hall.  She  had  just  closed  Reggie's 
door  behind  her  as  Lorimer  came  down 
from  the  floor  above. 

"How  is  he,  after  the  night?"  he  asked. 

"Asleep  now.  He  's  been  restless,  up  to 
dawn.  The  doctors  don't  say  much." 

She  stood  before  him,  in  her  white  linen 
dress,  superbly  strong,  superbly  alive.  The 
very  sight  of  her  this  morning  made  his 
blood  pulse  faster.  From  her  night  of 
watching  there  lingered  a  slight  pallor 
which  only  heightened  the  new  charm 
which  enveloped  her. 

Her  brows  met  in  a  slight  frown,  under 
his  intense  gaze,  and  Lorimer,  catching 
himself  up  instantly,  broke  the  too  oppres 
sive  silence. 


CLEM 

"There  is  nothing  at  all  I  can  do  for 
you  ?  Could  you  be  spared  now  for  a  short 
drive  or  ride?  It  is  n't  possible  that  you 
have  been  up  all  night !" 

"I  've  just  had  a  few  hours  of  rest,"  she 
said,  with  a  slow  shake  of  her  head.  "I  'm 
even  going  to  have  my  breakfast,  sent  up 
here.  They  want  me  within  call  all  the  time 
to-day.  Whenever  Reggie  rouses,  he  wants 
me,  you  see,"  she  added  simply. 

She  moved  away  from  him,  had  turned 
quite  aside  in  fact,  but  she  came  back,  and 
addressed  him  brusquely: 

"Look  here!  You  can  tell  Mrs.  Wines 
better  than  anybody;  she  '11  stand  it  from 
you.  Twice  last  night  she  stood  at  this 
door,  staring  into  the  room,  with  those 
wild,  fierce  eyes— it  gave  me  the  shivers. 
Of  course  Reggie's  pretty  bad,  and  she 
may  blame  me  a  lot ;  but  you  tell  her  this : 
what  I  said  to  her  yesterday  afternoon, 
stands!  I  'd  not  marry  him — not  to  save 
his  life— because  she  'd  rather  see  him 
dead— she  would  n't  thank  me.  I  Ve  got 
to  be  in  there  with  him — it  's  doctors'  or- 


CLEM 

ders — God  knows  I  wish  she  could  be  there 
instead.  But  he  wants  me,  and  only  me, 
and  so  he  shall  have  me,  all  my  days  and 
nights,  till  I  can  give  him  back  to  her — 
well !  I  'm  no  Indian-giver.  All  this — " 
she  swept  her  hands  out  in  a  wonderful 
gesture — "has  been  like  a  scratch  across  a 
picture.  I  've  told  him  all  sorts  of  things, 
all  last  night;  but  none  of  it  stands  except 
what  I  told  her.  You  tell  her  that.  Tell 
her  not  to  get  scared.  I  don't  want  a  thing 
she  's  set  her  heart  on." 

Her  voice  was  perfectly  level,  and  a  per 
son  with  an  untrained  ear  would  have  said 
it  was  emotionless.  Lorimer  knew  voices 
better,  and  knew  her  better,  and  he  put  out 
his  hand  toward  hers  on  an  impulse  of  an 
admiration  unbounded. 

"You  are  wonderful,  wonderful!"  he 
said. 

At  her  quick  start  he  let  her  hand  fall. 
A  faint,  fretful  cry  drifted  to  them 
through  the  closed  door.  It  was  Reggie, 
calling  her  name. 

For  a  moment  he  stood  in  the  doorway, 


CLEM 

watching  her  as  she  went  quickly  across 
the  room  and  bent  over  the  boy,  who  was 
still  murmuring  her  name  with  impatient 
tenderness.  He  saw  her  drop  lightly  to  the 
floor  and  slip  her  arm  under  the  tossing 
brown  head.  He  saw  her  lips  brush  his 
cheek  lightly,  and  her  own  cheek  laid 
against  the  boy's.  And  then  he  closed  the 
door  decisively,  and  went  across  the  broad 
corridor  to  the  long  doors  which  opened  on 
that  upper  veranda  where  he  sat  through 
most  of  the  night  before.  It  was  very 
early,  hardly  six  o'clock,  and  the  weary 
household  was  still  sleeping. 

He  sat  down  in  the  chair  which  he  had 
occupied  for  so  great  a  part  of  the  night  be 
fore,  with  a  keen  memory  of  those  leaden- 
winged  hours.  Here  he  and  Gresham  and 
Lowe  had  sat,  ready  for  anything,  but  so 
patently  useless.  To  them  Dell  had  flitted 
from  time  to  time,  with  bits  of  news,  or 
messages.  Reggie  was  recovering  well 
from  the  anesthetic;  Mrs.  Wines  was  un 
der  the  influence  of  an  opiate;  Virginia 
had  yielded  to  entreaty,  and  had  gone  to 


CLEM 

her  room;  Clem  was  still  needed;  every 
time  she  stirred  to  go  away  the  boy  roused 
and  asked  for  her.  And  to  them  all,  to 
Dell  sitting  curled  up  beside  Gresham  in  a 
huge  chair,  and  to  Lowe  and  himself,  had 
come,  just  before  the  dawn,  Clem  Merrit, 
with  her  hair  and  dress  in  disarray  and  her 
face  white  and  weary. 

"I  came  to  tell  you  all  that  I  am  sent 
away  for  the  rest  of  the  night,"  she  had 
said  directly,  "because  I  'm  not  needed 
any  more  for  a  while ;  and  that  everything 
is  as  hopeful  as  it  can  possibly  be  now.  If 
Mrs.  Wines  is  awake — oh,  I  'm  glad. 
But  if  she  had  been  waiting  for  word  she 
ought  to  have  even  this  little  bit  of  good 
news." 

And  then  Dell  had  whirled  herself  to  her 
feet,  and  with  characteristic  rapidity  had 
taken  charge  of  the  girl.  And  here  he  sat 
again,  after  four  brief  hours  of  rest,  reliv 
ing  it  all. 

For  Drake  Lorimer,  since  Clem  Mer- 
rit's  parting  words  to  him  the  day  before, 
had  not  had  any  consecutive  moments  in 

[220] 


CLEM 

which  to  consider  all  they  held  for  him, 
and  all  that  they  might  mean  to  him.  He 
had  been  writhing-  under  them  for  a  thou 
sand  years,  it  seemed  to  him,  so  swiftly 
had  event  followed  on  event  in  these  last 
twelve  hours.  One  sentence  of  hers  had 
rung  in  his  ears,  ever  since  she  had  uttered 
it :  "No  one  side  of  life  can  afford  to  sit 
back  in  a  smug  little  corner  and  say,  'I  'm 
It!'" 

She  had  accused  them  all  of  being  snobs. 
As  she  had  granted,  it  was  not  a  pretty 
word.  But  she  had  uttered  it  firmly, 
though  not  until  he  himself  had  put  it  into 
speech.  And  after  uttering  it,  she  had 
explained  it,  definitely;  and  Lorimer  re 
sented,  with  an  appreciation  both  of  its 
justness  and  un justness,  her  classification 
of  him. 

But  he  resented  far  more  deeply  his  clas 
sification  of  her.  He  had  taken  her  at  a 
merely  surface  value,  and  even  in  that  sur 
face  valuation  of  her  he  had  been  unfair. 
He  had  labeled  her  nouveau  riche,  with 
all  that  it  implies  of  vulgarity  and  lack  of 


CLEM 

breeding.  And  yesterday,  in  her  departure 
from  the  place  where  she  had  been  put  to 
the  torture,  she  had  shown  a  justness  of 
judgment  which  had  shamed  him  utterly. 
She  had  refused  to  blame  the  mother  for 
the  cruel  trick  practised  on  her,  because  she 
remembered,  resolutely,  that  mother's  son. 
She  had  granted  them  all  their  point  of 
view,  and  in  her  sane,  personal  judgment 
of  them,  had  taken  that  view-point  into 
consideration.  By  so  much  had  she  shown 
a  fineness  which  they,  in  their  judgment  of 
her  and  her  motives,  had  lacked.  And  if 
she  had  shown  them  justice  when  she  left 
them,  she  had  shown  them  the  uttermost 
mercy  in  the  manner  of  her  return.  He 
could  never  forget  that  moment  when 
she  refused  to  enter  the  house  until 
she  had  her  orders  from  those  in 
authority,  the  boy's  physicians.  She 
had  refused  even  then  to  blame  Mrs. 
Wines;  had  ignored  all  her  frenzies  of 
grief;  but  she  had  retained  her  own 
standards. 

And  all  this  meant  that  she  had  reached 


CLEM 

to  heights  where  they  had  not  ascended; 
and  that  they  had  sunk  to  depths  on  whose 
brink  she  stood  aloof. 

For  one  undisturbed  hour  he  gripped 
with  searching  self -questioning.  He  had 
felt  assured  for  many  years  that  he  had 
a  philosopher's  natural  view  of  life  and 
men  and  women.  Not  for  all  of  ten  years, 
until  this  last  month,  has  he  met  any  one, 
man  or  woman,  who  had  unsettled  his  cool, 
tempered  judgment,  whose  personality  had 
not  lent  itself  to  general  rules  and  classifi 
cations.  But  this  girl  had  been  a  disquiet 
ing  force  in  his  life,  ever  since  he  had  seen 
her.  She  had  uprooted,  ruthlessly,  his 
philosophy,  had  shaken  his  conventions, 
his  beliefs,  most  of  what  he  had  termed 
his  knowledge  of  men  and  women  and  life. 
And  he  knew  that  he  could  compass  no 
peace  of  mind  or  spirit  until  in  some  way 
he  had  made  atonement  for  his  crass  judg 
ment  of  her. 

He  looked  up  to  see  Mrs.  Wines  coming 
toward  him,  her  hands  held  out  in  piteous 
appeal. 


CLEM 

"Will  the  doctors  say  anything  to  you?" 
she  asked  him.  "I  went  into  his  room  last 
night — twice!  And  this  morning — I  have 
just  come  from  him,  from  the  door  where 
they  let  me  stand,  out  of  his  sight,  but  in 
hearing  of  his  voice  that  is  calling  always 
for  'Clem !'  'Clem !'  'Clem !'  They  tried  to 
make  me  stay  in  my  room,  within  sound  of 
that  unending  cry  of  his — " 

Of  them  all,  life  was  hardest,  that  day, 
for  Frances  Wines,  and  Lorimer  realized 
it.  He  understood  that  she,  too,  had  looked 
upon  the  picture  he  had  seen ;  had  watched 
Clem  Merrit  on  her  knees  beside  the  bed, 
with  her  strong  young  arms  about  the  boy, 
with  her  cheek  laid  against  his,  soothing 
him,  necessary  to  him,  as  she,  his  mother, 
was  not. 

Lorimer  went  to  meet  her,  and  put  her 
into  a  low,  comfortable  chair.  "You  won't 
forget  that  the  slightest  touch  of  fever  al 
ways  sets  Reggie  off,"  he  reminded  her. 
"He  has  raved  through  all  his  illnesses. 
We  have  everything  to  help  us,  the  sur 
geons  we  most  desired,  and  nurses,  and 


CLEM 

Clem  Merrit.  And  from  her  lips,  given  to 
me  an  hour  ago,  I  have  a  message  for  you 
— I  want  you  to  listen  to  it  now." 

He  said  it  over  slowly,  almost  word  for 
word:  "—he  shall  have  me,  all  my  days 
and  nights,  until  I  give  him  back  to  her — 
well !"  "—I  'm  no  Indian-giver—"  "—it 's 
like  a  scratch  across  a  picture — "  All  her 
phrasings  and  intonations  came  back  to 
him  as  he  repeated  her  words  to  Frances 
Wines. 

She  listened  in  silence,  her  mind  dis 
traught  with  her  grief.  Only  one  thought 
filled  her  brain ;  the  conviction  that  her  son 
was  lying,  all  but  self-slain,  because  of  this 
girl.  Lorimer  knew  her  thought,  and  his 
face  grew  sterner. 

"I  have  kept  the  morbid  promise  you 
demanded,"  he  said.  "I  have  not  sug 
gested  the  idea  of  suicide  to  the  surgeons. 
But  neither  have  they  suggested  it  to  me. 
I  will  swear  that  it  is  nothing  but  an  un 
fortunate  accident.  But  however  that  may 
be-" 

He  came  closer  to  her,  and  spoke  with 


CLEM 

added  emphasis :  "It  is  worse  than  barbar 
ous  for  her  to  continue  with  us  under  pres 
ent  conditions.  She  will  stay — oh,  yes! 
But  each  moment  that  she  stays — so — only 
serves  to  raise  her,  and  to  lower  us,  infi 
nitely.  She  did  us  an  infinite  favor  in 
coming  back — she  could  do  no  less,  you 
say.  Most  certainly  she  could  do  no  more, 
after  the  manner  of  her  leaving.  And 
every  moment  that  she  stays  here,  a  pariah 
in  your  eyes,  we  are  proving  ourselves  less 
and  less  her  peers.  And  I,  for  one,  writhe 
under  it." 

Lorimer  was  speaking  with  such  earnest 
ness  that  he  did  not  notice  Dell's  approach. 
As  he  finished,  she  spoke  quickly. 

"And  I,  too,  dear  Aunt  Frances.  I  am 
Clem  Merrit's  very  good  friend.  We 
sealed  terms  and  conditions  last  night,  and 
I  spoke  to  her  very  frankly  of  this 
wretched  business.  We  must  play  up  to  her. 
She  is  no  more  the  same  girl  who  swept 
into  your  dining-room  that  first  night  she 
came  here,  in  her  pale-gold  dress  and  all 
her  crudities,  than  we  are  the  same  people 


CLEM 

we  were  before  we  met  her.  Something 
volcanic  has  happened  to  all  of  us.  Every 
man  here  is  her  friend — ah!" 

She  broke  off  with  a  cry  of  disgust  at 
her  own  stupidity,  as  she  saw  the  look 
which  crossed  Mrs.  Wines's  face. 

"Oh,  every  man,  my  dear  Dell!"  she 
murmured.  Then  she  broke  into  rapid 
speech.  "It  is  n't  that  I  don't  concede  the 
girl  her  good  points — she  has  them — but' 
she  alone  is  to  blame  for  this  awful  thing. 
It  is  good  of  her  to  come  back — yes ! — but 
she  could  do  no  less.  And  being  back — oh, 
my  boy,  my  boy !" 

Dell  looked  upon  the  white  face  help 
lessly.  With  a  dimness  of  insight  with 
which  she  did  not  have  often  to  struggle, 
she  wondered  if  this  was,  after  all,  mother 
hood;  this  blind  intensity,  this  bending  of 
all  things  else  to  the  ultimate  good  of  the 
best  beloved.  Dell's  own  child  had  died 
in  its  infancy,  six  years  before,  and  she 
had  never  had  another.  She  was  hardly 
made  for  motherhood,  for  many  of  its 
potent  instincts  were  lacking  in  her,  but  a 

[227] 


CLEM 

stifled  longing  after  her  brief  maternality 
stirred  painfully  within  her  at  times.  It 
stirred  now;  it  made  her  pitiful  toward 
the  great  resentment  which  lay  in  this 
mother's  eyes ;  but  her  heart  throbbed  too, 
for  the  victim  of  this  mother's  devotion  to 
her  son;  and,  finally,  because  there  was 
nothing  left  for  her  or  Lorimer  to  do  or 
say,  they  went  away  together. 

All  day  long  Mrs.  Wines  wrestled  with 
herself ;  she  held  Clem  Merrit's  message  in 
her  hands,  and  she  looked  upon  it  steadily, 
from  every  standpoint.  " — I  'd  not  marry 
him  to  save  his  life — because  she  'd  rather 
see  him  dead — she  would  n't  thank  me!" 
It  sounded  brutal.  But  it  did  not  sound 
more  brutal  than  it  was. 

And  when  the  day  dragged  into  evening ; 
when  the  boy's  fever  mounted  higher,  and 
Lorimer,  with  troubled  face,  held  her  back 
from  Reggie's  doorway,  asking  her  to 
wait,  because  the  delirium  was  violent  and 
she  could  do  nothing,  she  seemed  to  know 
by  instinct  what  he  was  saving  her  from 
hearing.  A  few  words  floated  out  to  her, 


CLEM 

enough  to  confirm  her  instant,  intuitive 
knowledge;  her  boy  was  raving  against 
her,  against  her  injustice,  her  cruelty.  "He 
blames  you — some,"  Clem  Merrit  had 
dared  to  tell  her.  Yes,  he  blamed  her. 

It  took  her  solemn  watch  that  night, 
from  midnight  to  dawn,  to  break  utterly 
the  stiff-necked,  bitter  anger  which  had 
held  her  for  so  many  hours;  that  solemn 
watch  which  she  kept,  alone,  upon  the 
room  where  her  boy  lay,  with  his  nurses 
and  with  Clem.  From  the  darkened  hall, 
where  she  sat  unseen,  she  looked  stead 
fastly  upon  the  girl's  face,  as  it  bent 
above  the  boy's.*  It  was  sleep  that  he 
needed,  and  that  he  would  not  take  unless 
Clem's  arm  lay  beneath  his  head.  So  often, 
at  first,  the  girl  seemed  to  think  he  was 
sleeping  soundly,  only  to  see  him  rouse  into 
irritable  consciousness  at  the  first  motion  of 
her  withdrawing  arm ;  and  at  last,  for  two 
long  hours  before  the  dawn,  Clem  knelt  be 
side  him,  motionless,  racked  with  a  weary 
pain  to  which  she  would  not  succumb. 

It  was  just  dawn  when  the  nurses  lifted 


CLEM 

her  to  her  feet,  from  the  spot  where  she  had 
knelt  for  two  hours.  One  of  the  first  bad 
breaks  in  the  boy's  case  was  spanned,  and 
in  the  reaction  her  strength  slipped  momen 
tarily  away.  She  could  not  walk  at  first, 
and  her  very  life  seemed  ebbing  out  of  her 
when  she  finally  stepped  into  the  hall  with 
one  of  the  nurses,  bound  for,  what  seemed 
to  her  an  impossible  goal,  her  own  room, 
across  the  corridor. 

She  seemed  to  be  walking  in  a  painful 
dream;  it  was  a  dream  that  Reggie's 
mother  came  up  to  her,  touched  her,  spoke 
to  her;  spoke  to  the  nurse  in  a  frightened 
voice  about  her.  The  dre*am  still  enveloped 
her  as  she  lay  upon  her  bed,  her  cramped 
muscles  helpless  to  aid  her,  and  felt  Mrs. 
Wines's  hands  no  less  tender,  and  almost 
as  skilful  as  the  nurse's,  loosen  her  clothes 
and  make  her  comfortable.  It  was  a  dream 
of  dreams  when  she  felt  Mrs.  Wines  push 
away  the  sleeve  from' the  weary  arm  where 
Reggie's  head  had  rested  for  so  long,  and 
begin  to  rub  back  into  life  the  numbed 
muscles.  Clem  flung  up  her  other  arm 


CLEM 

over  her  face,  and  hid  it  so,  for  many  min 
utes.  It  was  all  a  dream — she  had  no  de 
sire  to  wake.  She  heard  the  nurse  say 
something  in  a  low  voice;  heard  Mrs. 
Wines's  assent ;  heard  the  sound  of  a  closing 
door.  The  nurse  had  left  them.  And  still 
those  cool,  magnetic  hands  caressed  her — 

She  thrilled  into  life  at  last,  when  she 
felt  hot  tears  falling  on  her  arm,  and  she 
turned  her  head  and  stared  into  Mrs. 
Wines's  face.  As  their  eyes  met  Clem  put 
up  a  protesting  hand,  but  Mrs.  Wines  laid 
her  own  upon  it. 

"You  stopped  me  two  days  ago,"  she 
murmured,  " — in  what  I  would  have  said 
to  you.  It  is  all  something  almost  too  bit 
ter  for  words;  and  yet  you  were  brave 
enough  to  speak,  and  to  speak  most  justly 
and  gently  to  me ;  and  everything  you  said 
was  quite  true,  and  took  more  courage  in 
the  saying  than  I  had— or  have.  Drake 
gave  me  your  message  this  morning — I  am 
bitterly  ashamed  I  seemed  so  in  need  of  it 
—I  have  blamed  you  bitterly  for  too  many 
things — and  if  he  lives — " 


CLEM 

Her  voice  broke  utterly. 

Clem  turned  her  face  until  it  lay  against 
Mrs.  Wines's.  "If  he  lives,"  she  whispered, 
"he  '11  be  yours.  Can't  you  see  the  thing  be 
tween  us  is  dead,  dead !  It  can't  be  helped ; 
it  's  over  and  done  with  forever." 

She  felt  Mrs.  Wines's  fleeting  kiss  on 
her  forehead,  and  she  caught  the  older 
woman's  hand,  and  held  it  fast. 

"I  could  n't  bear  to  have  you  say  this 
sort  of  thing  to  me,  ever  again,"' she  whis 
pered;  "but  I  '11  never  forget  your  coming 
here  to-night — never !" 

And  then  she  sank  into  a  dead,  dreamless 
sleep. 


XVI 

ALL  through  the  anxious  week  that  fol- 
*~*  lowed,  Mrs.  Wines  never  lost  her  won 
der  at  Clem  Merrit's  resolute  matter-of- 
factness;  at  her  cool  acceptance  of  sick 
room  conditions.  It  seemed  ever  new  and 
strange  to  her  that  Clem  should  bend  so  in 
stantly  over  Reggie  when  he  called  her; 
should  kiss  his  lips  and  forehead;  should 
press  her  cool  cheek  to  his;  all  with  no 
more  self -consciousness  than  when  she 
gave  him  the  medicine  or  food  which  he 
would  take  from  no  one  else.  And  mean 
time  he  passed  from  crisis  to  crisis,  until 
there  came  at  last  a  night  when  the  gods  of 
life  and  death  fought  visibly  above  his 
bed  for  possession  of  him,  in  full  panoply 
of  war,  before  the  pale,  wan  mother,  and 
the  determined  girl  who  refused  to  look 
beyond  any  present  moment  of  struggle. 
And  in  the  end,  life,  was  victor,  though  by 


CLEM 

so  small  a  margin  that  they  dared  not  hope 
too  much  until  day  after  day  of  steady 
gaining  rolled  around  to  make  them  sure. 

Then  it  was  that  the  mother's  hard  hours 
came  again.  In  his  convalescence,  slow 
and  wavering,  her  boy  was  not  hers.  He 
liked  to  have  her  near  him,  when  Clem  was 
away;  and  after  those  long  days  and  nights 
of  constant  care,  it  was  needful  that  she 
should  be  out  of  the  sick-room  for  many 
hours,  gaining  the  rest  which  she  sorely 
needed.  During  these  hours  Reggie  lay  pa 
tiently  enough,  with  his  mother  in  attend 
ance,  but  he  talked  of  Clem  incessantly. 

"You  like  her  now,  mother!"  he  would 
say;  and  at  her  assent  he  would  smile 
proudly.  "I  always  told  you  she  was  the 
finest  sort  of  a  girl,"  he  would  assert. 
"Think  of  a  girl  like  her  sticking  by  a 
fellow  for  days  and  nights,  when  the  house 
was  full  of  doctors  and  nurses — just  be 
cause  he  yelled  for  her — she  's  the  finest 
sort  of  a  girl !" 

It  was  all  boyish  and  very  simple,  and  so 
dear.  She  loved  him  all  the  more  for  his 


CLEM 

loyalty,  and  she  found  herself  suffering 
vicariously  for  him  in  that  moment  when 
he  must  learn  that  all  the  sweet  assurances 
which  Clem  had  murmured  to  him  in  those 
hours  of  his  illness  were  mere  murmurings. 
For  herself,  she  could  not  doubt  Clem  Mer- 
rit's  firm  resolve;  yet  she  caught  herself 
rebelling  at  it  once  or  twice,  while  she 
watched  her  boy  lying  dreamily,  with  an 
odd,  tender  little  smile  curving  his  clean 
young  mouth.  Was  the  girl  to  go  happily 
on  her  way,  leaving  Reggie  behind  her, 
suffering  and  forlorn !  It  was  monstrous ! 
When  it  meant  suffering  for  them  both,  it 
was  easier  for  the  mother  to  contemplate  it. 
Now,  when  it  seemed  that  only  her  boy  was 
to  wince  beneath  the  bludgeoning  of  fate, 
the  situation  took'  on  a  different  aspect. 

She  did  not  do  Clem  Merrit  full  justice 
yet;  doubt  there  was  if  she  ever  could,  so 
dissimilar  were  their  planes  of  thought  and 
action.  Yet  she  was  forced  to  this  conclu 
sion  at  last:  Clem  did  her  fuller  justice 
than  she  did  Clem;  Clem  judged  motives 
more  gently,  and  truly  sympathized  with 


CLEM 

limitations  to  a  more  vital  degree.  And 
Frances  Wines  was  forced  to  this  better 
knowledge  of  the  girl,  past  all  her  gentle 
laws  of  caste  and  race,  and  past  all  her 
grave  reserve. 

Clem  Merrit's  own  straightforwardness 
helped  the  situation  as  nothing  else  did  or 
could.  In  her  own  phrase,  she  had  buried 
the  hatchet  deep  in  the  uncomfortable  past. 
After  all,  there  were  only  two  people  here 
against  whom  she  had  felt  heavy  resent 
ment,  and  both  of  these  people  had  done  all 
things  to  atone.  Mrs.  Wines's  tears  had 
done  more  than  any  words;  and  Drake 
Lorimer  had  left  nothing  undone  which  an 
ever-present  thoughtfulness  could  prompt. 
But  with  all  he  had  done,  he  had  left  much 
unsaid.  This,  with  some 'sixth  sense,  Clem 
knew;  and  she  was  warding  off  any  fur 
ther  reparation  on  his  part.  She  had 
had  enough  of  it.  She  was  willing  to 
forget. 

Therefore  she  accepted  Lorimer  as  she 
accepted  Lowe,  and  Lowe  as  she  accepted 


CLEM 

Lorimer,  on  an  easy  basis  of  frank  good- 
fellowship.  Both  of  them  were  resource 
ful  in  their  plans  for  her  comfort  and  rec 
reation,  and  more  often  than  not  it  was 
with  both  of  them  that  she  departed  on 
her  rides  and  her  walks.  She  swept  all  the 
cobwebs  of  finesse  and  restraint  away  from 
her  path,  by  her  resolute  ignoring  of  what 
had  gone  before,  and  matters  settled  into  a 
state  of  freedom  and  comfort  as  delight 
ful  as  it  was  surprising. 

And  she  had  no  more  reason  to  say  she 
had  no  woman  friend.  For  Dell  Gresham 
was  outspokenly  that — Clem  Merrit's 
friend.  Lowe  watched  the  growth  of  that 
friendship  with  humorous  interest,  feeling 
a  certain  proprietary  pride  in  it.  He  had 
divined  the  kinship  in  their  natures  long 
since,  and  every  man  is  proud  of  proof  that 
he  is  intuitive. 

As  for  his  pride  in  his  own  conception  of 
Clem  Merrit,  it  waxed  with  each  day.  She 
had  not  failed  herself.  She  had  faced  as 
hard  a  situation  as  life  would  probably 


CLEM 

hold  for  her ;  and  she  had  faced  it  gallantly, 
with  her  head  held  high,  and  with  lips  that 
smiled  without  bravado,  but  with  a  very 
fine  courage.  She  had  won  against  the 
heaviest  of  odds,  by  sheer  force  of  that 
splendid  spirit  which  glowed  within  her. 
Throughout  this  most  bitter  test,  she  had 
not  been  found  wanting,  in  the  most  essen 
tial  sense.  She  had  rather  shown  unsus 
pected  strength  along  lines  where  one 
might  look  for  the  least  resistance.  As 
matters  had  developed,  hers  was  the  advan 
tage;  theirs,  the  damage.  All  along  the 
line  they  had  been  routed,  and,  one  by  one, 
they  were  coming  back,  to  sit  in  her  tent's 
shadow,  a  Hudibrastic  denouement  of 
which  she  was  splendidly  unconscious. 

Now  and  then  Lowe  permitted  himself  a 
mild  wonder  as  to  the  still  hidden  truth  of 
Reggie's  shooting  fray.  Since  the  evening 
on  which  he  went  into  town  to  meet  Clem 
and  bring  her  back,  no  words  relating  to  it 
had  passed  her  lips.  It  was  a  subject  ta 
booed  between  them,  and  Lowe  did  not 
know  whether  the  girl's  lips  were  sealed 


CLEM 

from  uncertainty  or  distressing  knowledge. 
In  a  happier  contingency  he  felt  sure  that 
he  would  have  been  told.  He  did  not  fore 
see  in  just  what  way  things  hidden  were  to 
be  revealed,  nor  the  far-reaching  effects  of 
that  revealing. 


XVII 

/TAHE  revelation  came,  six  weeks  to  a 
-L  day  from  the  time  of  Reggie's  mis 
hap,  on  a  morning  when  Clem  was  absent, 
riding  hard  with  Lorimer  along  the  coun 
try  roads.  It  involved  the  entire  house 
hold,  which  accounted  for  the  noticeable 
tensity  of  the  luncheon  hour;  a  tensity 
which  Clem  and  Lorimer,  entering  the 
dining-room  almost  at  the  close  of  the 
meal,  missed.  They  were  in  their  riding 
clothes,  and  they  offered  but  scant  apology 
therefor. 

"We  're  famished,"  Clem  said  to  Dell, 
as  she  dropped  into  a  vacant  chair  beside 
her.  "I  'm  keeping  my  hat  on.  My  hair 
would  drop  to  my  knees  if  I  did  n't."  She 
flung  her  whip  into  a  corner  and  drew  off 
her  gloves.  Then  she  glanced  about  the 
table. 

"Where    's    Reggie?"    she    demanded. 


CLEM 

"Did  n't  he  feel  up  to  coming  down  ?"  For 
Reggie  had  been  spending  most  of  the  last 
few  days  down-stairs. 

"Oh,  he  is  perfectly  well,"  Mrs.  Wines 
answered  her  hastily.  "He — " 

Lowe  filled  in  the  pause  promptly,  be 
fore  the  wonder  in  Clem's  eyes  grew  too 
great. 

"He  is  sulking,  Clem,"  he  remarked  con 
fidentially,  at  her  elbow.  "He  desires  to 
see  you  immediately." 

"What  rot!"  Clem  said.  "What  's  up, 
Jack?" 

She  was  glancing  carefully  about  the 
table,  and  she  felt  a  definite  change.  If 
Jack's  aside  was  true,  Reggie's  sulking  was 
making  his  relatives  undeniably  happy. 
Mrs.  Wines,  especially,  looked  the  embodi 
ment  of  peace  and  joy.  She  made  a  some 
what  hasty  meal,  and  rose  abruptly,  while 
the  others  were  still  sitting  casually  about. 

"This  riding  habit  is  too  stuffy  to  en 
dure,"  she  said.  "Do  let  me  go !" 

As  she  passed  Mrs.  Wines,  that  lady 
reached  out  a  detaining  hand.  "Reggie  has 


CLEM 

been  asking  for  you,  Clem,"  she  said. 
There  was  a  note  of  eager  joy  in  her  voice 
which  puzzled  the  girl. 

"Yes,"  she  said.  "I  '11  go  to  him  in  a  lit 
tle  while." 

She  stopped  at  Reggie's  door,  before  she 
went  to  her  own  room,  and  tapped  lightly 
on  it  with  her  whip  handle.  "I  'm  back, 
Reggie,"  she  called.  "As  soon  as  I  get  out 
of  these  riding  things  I  '11  come  in." 

"Never  mind  about  the  riding  togs,"  said 
Reggie  crossly.  "Come  in  now,  Clem.  I 
want  to  talk  to  you  about  something  im 
portant.  Can  you  fix  up  a  deal  to  keep  the 
whole  lot  of  rotters  down-stairs  from  run 
ning  in  and  out?  I  want  to  talk  to  you 
alone.  It  's  important,  I  tell  you." 

He  was  wagging  his  head  ominously, 
and  his  frown  was  fierce.  Clem  stared  at 
him  in  wonder  and  some  amusement,  and 
then  she  came  farther  into  the  room,  and 
closed  the  door  behind  her. 

"It  just  occurs  to  me  that  they  're  all  pre 
pared  down-stairs,  for  this  little  wig- wag  of 
ours,"  she  remarked  coolly.  "I  don't  think 


CLEM 

we  '11  take  any  big  chances  if  we  settle 
down  right  now." 

She  came  freely  across  the  room,  her 
whip  still  swinging  lightly  in  her  hand,  and 
she  stood  for  a  moment  beside  his  chair,  in 
her  severe  habit,  with  her  small  Derby  still 
banded  tight  to  her  head.  As  he  did  not 
speak  at  once,  she  dropped  into  a  chair  op 
posite  him,  cutting  at  the  intervening  air 
lightly  with  her  whip. 

"It  was  a  gorgeous  morning!"  she  said 
at  length.  "Mr.  Lorimer  and  I  were  out 
till  luncheon.  I  wonder  when  those  beasts 
of  doctors  are  going  to  let  you  ride  again !" 

"That  's  what  I  want  to  talk  to  you 
about,  Clem,"  Reggie  interposed.  "Have 
you  got  any  idea  of  what  people  are  saying 
about  this  condemned  shooting  fray  of 
mine?  Do  you  know  what  people  here 
think?" 

"Nobody  's  told  me  what  anybody 
thinks,"  Clem  replied  cheerfully.  "I  Ve 
been  too  busy  to  listen,  if  any  one  had." 

"That  's  what  I  told  'em,"  Reggie  af 
firmed.  "Mother  got  in  here  before  I  got 


CLEM 

through  with  Vee — Vee  gave  it  all  away — 
and  they  both  made  a  great  powwow.  Vee 
let  out  too  much,  without  meaning  to,  and 
I  jumped  on  her,  and  jerked  the  rest  out 
before  she  knew  it.  She  's  been  thinking, 
and  mother  's  been  thinking,  all  along,  and 
all  the  rest  of  'em,  for  that  matter,  Dell  and 
Eaton  and  Drake — that  it  was  a  blunder  at 
suicide!— that  I  tried  to  do  for  myself  with 
a  confounded  bullet ! — that  I  'm  alive  to-day 
only  because  I  did  n't  know  how  to  shoot 
to  kill !  Vee  owned  up  that  mother  was 
certain  of  it,  and  that  Drake  and  Eaton 
were  afraid  of  it — and  as  many  more  who 
knew  you  'd  tried  to  throw  me  down ; 
owned  up  that  everybody  in  this  shack, 
down  to  the  stable  boy,  thinks  I  'm  a  near- 
suicide,  a  poor,  driveling,  sniveling  fool ! 
That  I  tried  to  shoot  myself  because  a  girl 
had  thrown  me  over!  Well,  it  hurt  that 
day,  but  not  that  way — " 

He  raised  his  eyes  to  Clem's  all  too  ex 
pressive  face,  and  met  her  betraying  eyes 
full;  and  he  bent  toward  her  with  a  dark 
flush  flooding  his  face. 

C  244;] 


CLEM 

"You  too!"  he  said  sharply.  "Et  tu, 
Brute!"  did  not  come  in  its  first  utterance 
from  a  heart  more  deeply  charged  with 
woe. 

It  was  Clem's  turn  to  flush  slightly,  and 
to  rush  to  hurried  words. 

"Truly,  Reggie,  no!  Not  even  when 
Jack  told  me  your  mother  thought  it,  the 
night  he  came  after  me,  and  brought  me 
back.  Not  till  I  saw  you,  before  the  opera 
tion,  and  you  yourself  said  things  that 
made  me  sure — for  a  while,  that  is — that  it 
was  a  plain  case  of — " 

Reggie  checked  her  with  a  hand  up 
raised  in  awful  dignity. 

"Did  it  enter  your  head,  once,  before  you 
saw  me  all  dopey  and  queer  in  the  head,  as 
a  possible  thing?"  he  asked. 

Clem  flecked  delicately  at  her  riding  boot 
and  did  not  reply. 

"It  did !"  Reggie  groaned,  and  fell  back 
into  his  chair,  with  his  eyes  closed  against 
the  alluring  sight  of  her  as  she  sat  there  in 
her  riding  dress,  with  her  whip  flecking  the 
air. 

O45H 


CLEM 

"Now  look  here,  Reggie,"  Clem  said  at 
last,  with  that  business-like  directness  which 
distinguished  her  and  all  her  deeds.  "Just 
figure  it  out  a  bit,  will  you.  I  told  you 
that  afternoon  that  I  would  n't  marry  you 
—and  I  want  you  to  get  accustomed,  by  the 
way,  to  the  thought  that  that  statement  still 
stands.  You  've  been  desperately  sick,  and 
you  had  to  be  told  all  sorts  of  creamy  non 
sense,  as  nonsensical  as  what  you  said  be 
fore  the  operation  evidently  was.  Just 
get  used  to  that,  will  you?  So  off  you 
go  in  a  huff — perhaps  you  don't  remem 
ber  what  you  said  as  you  cut  out  behind 
those  pine-trees,  but  I  do  very  well,  and 
did,  that  same  evening,  when  Jack  met 
me  with  the  pleasant  news  that  you  were 
shot.  You  had  said  that  you  were  going 
to  the  devil — well,  I  thought,  if  you  '11  par 
don  me,  that  you  'd  started.  And  then  I 
remembered  what  a  cracking  shot  you  are, 
and  when  Jack  said  a  second  time  that  it 
was  the  sort  of  wound  it  was,  I  was  sure 
the  other  idea  was  absurd,  and  that  it 
was  only  an  accident,  doubly  unfortunate 


CLEM 

because  it  happened  to  come  at  such  a  very 
uncomfortable  time  for  all  of  us.  So  I 
come  back  here,  because  you  said  you 
wanted  me,  and  I  'm  sent  in  here  before 
they  operate,  and  you  begin  a  lot  of  burble 
about  being  a  fool,  and  thoughts  of  murder 
when  I  laughed — and,  in  short,  I  was  pretty 
thoroughly  scared !  Men  have  done  it,  you 
know,"  she  added  defensively,  as  she 
caught  Reggie's  look  of  dire  contempt. 

"Fools  have!"  muttered  Reggie. 

"Well,  fools,  if  you  like.  They  're  lots 
of  'em  loose  in  every  woods.  Of  course 
you  said  it  was  an  accident,  but  you  'd  be 
likely  to  say  that ;  anybody  would,  as  soon 
as  he  found  he  could  still  talk,  whether  he 
was  telling  the  truth  or  not.  So  that  did  n't 
count  for  or  against  you.  And -the  doctors 
did  n't  count,  in  their  diagnoses,  for  or 
against,  and  when  they  did  n't  say  it  was 
self -inflicted,  or  hint  at  it,  why,  nobody 
took  it  on  himself  to  start  the  story." 

Reggie  sat  in  wrathful  dignity,  and 
Clem  watched  him  quizzically.  She  had 
disappointed  him  sorely,  that  was  evident; 


CLEM 

and  she  was  a  bit  sorry,  but  it  was  funny 
—his  fuming  impotency.  She  wondered 
dumbly  how  much  longer  she  could  pre 
serve  a  fitting  gravity  in  the  face  of  it. 

"That  's  it,"  the  boy  said  at  last.  "All 
the  talk!  About  you  and  me!  It  's  not 
decent  sort  of  talk  for  you,  and  it  makes 
me  out  a  driveling  fool,  the  sort  of  fool 
any  right-minded  girl  ought  to  want  to 
shoot,  herself !  The  idea  of  a  man's  shoot 
ing  himself  for  a  girl !" 

Clem  broke  into  ringing  laughter. 
"What  's  the  proper  thing,  Reggie?"  she 
asked,  unwisely. 

"You  wait  and  see!"  the  boy  retorted 
with  wrath. 

Clem  looked  deeply  on  him;  then  she 
rose  from  her  chair,  and  went  over  to  him, 
and  dropped  on  her  knees  beside  him. 

"Listen  to  me,  Reggie!"  she  said. 
"There  's  no  waiting  about  it,  for  either  of 
us;  because  the  thing  's  done  for,  ended! 
Don't  you  see?  It  was  beautiful  while  it 
lasted,  and  no  girl  would  ever  want  a 
dearer  lover,  but  it  was  midsummer  mad- 


CLEM 

ness,  and  the  summer  's  all  but  gone.  It 
was  all  my  fault — I  ought  to  have  known 
better — I  did  know  better;  but  you  loved 
me  in  a  way  that  no  man  's  ever  loved  me 
—you  can't  understand,  and  I  can't  tell  you 
any  more  about  it;  but  I  loved  you  dearly 
for  that  sort  of  love  you  gave  me.  But 
that  sort  of  love  you  felt  for  me  could  n't 
last — it  never  lasts;  and  unless  there  's 
something  else  to  fall  back  on,  better  and 
more  solid,  it  goes  like  a  bubble — like  this 
love  of  ours  has  gone.  Ah,  yes,  it  has 
gone,  Reggie !  You  need  n't  own  it  to  me 
now,  but  it  's  gone  from  us." 

She  looked  mournfully  on  the  tumbled 
brown  head  so  near  her. 

"Listen,"  she  murmured.  "I  'm  the  first 
girl  you  Ve  loved,  Reggie.  Let  's  ticket 
you  the  tenth  man  for  me !  That  does  n't 
sound  nice,  does  it?  You  don't  like  it! 
Well,  the  man  I  marry  must  like  it,  must 
be  glad  of  it,  must  thank  heaven  for  every 
man  of  them  all  who  's  had  any  part  in 
making  me  the  sort  of  woman  I  am — what 
ever  sort  I  am.  And  you  can't  love  me  that 


CLEM 

way,  yet.  And  by  the  time  you  can — per 
haps  by  then  I  should  n't  like  the  work  of 
the  ten  women  who  had  come  between  us,  to 
change  you  from  the  boy  you  are  now !  Or 
it  may  not  be  ten  women,  Reggie,  but  the 
one  girl  you  '11  love.  And  I  don't  think 
she  '11  mind  the  thought  of  me,  not  if  she 
understands  the  way  you  love  me,  dear. 
Tell  her  it  was  Love  you  loved,  and  that  I 
stood  for  it  for  a  brief  three  months ;  and 
she  '11  understand,  better  than  you  under 
stand  now.  It  's  ended,  Reggie;  it  's 
ended!" 

She  was  still  kneeling  by  him,  her  hands 
pressed  hard  on  his  shoulders,  and,  as  she 
finished,  she  drew  his  face  down  to  hers, 
and  kissed  him  on  the  lips.  His  eyes  looked 
dazed  and  hurt. 

"It  's  not  ended,"  he  said  stubbornly. 
"You  've  been  listening  to  nonsense — if 
mother  has  been  saying — 

Clem  put  her  hand  firmly  over  his 
mouth.  "She  's  said  nothing — nothing — 
nothing!  She  never  would — again.  She 
took  me  to  my  room  and  stayed  by  me  one 


CLEM 

night  till  I  fell  asleep.  We  watched  over 
you  together,  she  and  I — she  knows  me 
better  than  she  did;  and  she  trusts  me.  I 
know  she  trusts  me,  now.  But  it  's  ended, 
Reggie ;  it  's  over !" 

Reggie  groaned  dismally.  "If  only  I 
were  on  my  feet  again !  I  can't  hold  you  to 
what  you  said  to  a  delirious  fool;  a  fool 
you  thought  had  shot  himself,  and  was  too 
much  of  a  fool  to  kill  himself — " 

Clem's  eyes  brimmed  with  tearful  laugh 
ter.  "Don't  you  see  how  absurd  it  is, 
dear!"  she  said;  and  kneeling  by  him  she 
laughed  and  cried  together  until  the  boy 
implored  her  to  desist. 

"It 's  so  funny  that  it 's  heart-breaking !" 
she  explained  inadequately.  She  looked 
up  at  him  at  last.  "I  'd  better  go,  Reggie." 

Reggie  caught  her  full  meaning.  "No," 
he  said  bluntly.  "You  can't.  You  said, 
that  day  you  threw  me  down,  that  we  could 
be  friends  still." 

"Well,  you  did  n't  seem  to  think  we 
could,"  Clem  remarked. 

"You  see,"  she  added,  "my  work  here  is 


CLEM 

done.  You  're  all  but  well.  You  could  be 
down-stairs  now,  up  and  down  by  yourself, 
if  we  did  n't  want  to  be  so  careful.  Next 
week  you  '11  be  all  over  the  place.  I 
could  n't  stay  any  longer,  you  see  that;  so 
why  not  go  now,  in  a  day  or  two  ?" 

"Don't  plan  about  it  yet,"  Reggie  im 
plored.  "I  need  to  get  sort  of  settled.  I  've 
tho.ught  that  things  were  the  same,  and  yet 
all  the  time  I  knew  they  were  n't;  knew 
that  you  were  just  making  a  big  baby  of 
me.  But  I  want  to  get  on  my  feet  again 
before  I  give  up  the  fight !  What  can  I  do, 
pinned  down  like  a  bug  in  this  chair — 
Clem,  I  wish  you  had  n't  thought  I  was 
such  a  damned  fool !" 

"I  'm  sorry!"  Clem  said,  with  an  irre 
pressible  smile,  and  Reggie,  looking  up  and 
catching  her  eyes,  after  a  hard  struggle 
with  his  dignity.,  laughed  ruefully. 

"I  'm  going  to  leave  you  now,"  Clem 
informed  him.  "I  '11  tell  your  mother — " 

"Don't  tell  anybody,"  the  young  man 
said  morosely.  "I  want  to  be  by  myself." 

"Then  I  '11  tell  Virginia  that  you  want 


CLEM 

her  to  come  up  to-night  after  dinner,  shall 
I?"  Clem  wheedled.  "I  won't  come  in 
again  to-day,  unless  you  send  for  me,  and 
you  'd  better  not.  But  I  '11  bring  you  your 
breakfast  to-morrow,  and  see  that  you  eat 
it.  Shall  I  send  you  Virginia?" 

"Vee  's  a  kid!"  growled  the  aged  lover. 

For  many  weeks  Clem  had  pondered 
over  the  why  of  that  first  talk  of  hers  and 
Virginia  Garnet's  during  her  first  week  at 
The  Pines ;  that  talk  in  which  the  younger 
girl,  under  a  transparent  question,  had  out 
lined  her  own  first  experience  of  love.  A 
random  remark  of  Dell  Gresham's  had  con 
firmed  Clem's  conclusion;  it  was  evident 
that  Virginia's  small  love  affair  had  been 
eruptive  in  its  nature  and  process,  and  that 
it  was  therefore  no  secret.  Yet  Dell's 
speaking  of  it  at  all  was  a  distinct  mark  of 
confidence,  since  it  was  the  other  side  which 
discussed  it,  to  Lorimer's  intense  annoy 
ance.  Clem  had  long  since  perceived,  of 
her  own  intelligence,  the  delicate,  filmy, 
motherly  planning  she  had  destroyed;  the 
great,  and  in  all  ways  desirable,  good  she 


CLEM 

had  frustrated.  She  looked  at  Reggie,  a 
faint  conception  dawning  within  her  of  why 
she  might  be  holding  all  these  vari-colored 
threads.  Yes,  it  was  an  eminently  suitable 
thing :  Drake  Lorimer's  cousin,  sweet,  ten 
der,  beloved  of  Reggie's  mother — Reggie's 
wife!  Could  it  be?  Could  it  be  made  to 
be? 

She  spoke  quickly,  because  she  would 
not  let  herself  consider  the  wisdom  of  her 
words;  her  impulse  to  say  them  was  so 
strong  that  it  must  be  right  to  follow  it. 

"Virginia,  a  kid !  Reggie,  you  're  a  bat, 
a  mole !  Can't  you  see  that  she  's  a  woman 
grown;  that  she  's  been — hurt?" 

Reggie  stared  up  at  her  vaguely.  "Do 
you  mean  that  she  's  in  love— too?"  he 
stammered.  "Who  with?  Who  's  the 
man?" 

Already  Clem  half  repented  of  her 
words.  It  was  an  open  secret,  and  yet, 
Reggie  had  not  known  it ;  it  was  too  much 
like  betrayal. 

"Don't  ask  me,  and  don't  ask  her!"  she 
said.  "But  don't  call  her  a  child  any  longer, 
a  child  who  knows  nothing — when  there  's 

£254:1 


CLEM 

such  a  lot  she  could  teach  you!  I  know 
you  hate  to  have  me  tell  you  any  woman — 
even  your  grandmother — is  older  than  you 
are.  Shall  I  ask  her  to  come  up?" 

"As  you  like !"  sighed  Reggie.  She  held 
out  her  hand,  and  after  a  scant  moment  of 
sad  gazing,  Reggie  took  it,  and  then  put 
up  a  long  arm,  and  caught  her  about  the 
neck. 

"You  don't  mind !"  he  murmured,  as  he 
kissed  her. 

"Mind!"  Clem  laughed  gently.  "Not 
any  more  than  if  you  were  a  kitten,  dear." 

And  with  that  barren  joy  to  feast  upon, 
she  left  him. 

She  wore  a  rather  rueful  smile  when  she 
stepped  into  the  hall,  and  its  peculiar  qual 
ity  struck  Lowe,  who  met  her  face  to  face. 

"You  could  n't  take  a  stroll  or  a  drive  ?" 
he  asked  her  insinuatingly.  "What  is  it? 
You  are  smiling  like  a  well-behaved  child 
whose  stick  of  candy  has  just  been  taken 
from  her!  Who  has  seized  it?" 

"I  've  given  it  away,"  Clem  answered  so 
berly.  "No,  Jack,  I  want  to  rest."  And 
she  turned  abruptly  from  him. 

[ass] 


XVIII 

looked  up  from  her  letters  the 
next  morning,  with  relief  and  regret 
mingled  in  her  heart.  Here,  in  this  letter, 
lay  her  way  of  escape,  as  well  as  her  path 
of  love  and  duty.  And  yet,  as  she  read  the 
lines  which  were  her  summons  away,  she 
felt  an  odd  sinking  of  her  heart. 

She  sat  in  silence  for  a  few  moments, 
dropping  lump  after  lump  of  sugar  into 
her  coffee,  until  she  discovered  it  to  be  a 
thick  and  nauseous  syrup.  She  pushed  it 
away  with  a  grimace,  and  spoke,  after  a 
manner  to  the  entire  board,  and  yet  directly 
to  Mrs.  Wines. 

"My  father  's  on  the  verge  of  going 
abroad  at  last.  He  gets  into  town  day 
after  to-morrow,  and  he  wants  me  back 
there  with  him,  for  his  last  week.  I  ought 
to  go,  to-morrow  night,  I  think." 

The  spontaneous  regret  which  met  her 


CLEM 

words  all  but  embarrassed  her.  She  was 
glad  that  her  call  to  the  city  was  of  so 
demanding  a  nature.  A  silly,  transparent 
excuse  could  not  have  withstood  their 
assaults.  She  was  glad  when  Reggie's 
breakfast-tray  was  brought  in,  because  she 
always  went  up-stairs  with  it  and  its 
bearer.  She  carried  her  letters  with  her, 
and  went  into  his  room  with  this  new  ulti 
matum  to  follow  so  close  upon  the  heels  of 
yesterday.  Reggie  greeted  her  with  sulky 
delight. 

"I  've  been  waiting  for  an  hour,"  he 
said.  "I  should  have  sent  for  you  if  you 
had  n't  come.  There  's  no  reason  why  you 
should  keep  away  from  me,  if  I  'm  willing 
to  have  you  round — and  I  am !" 

"You  've  got  a  fine  Italian  nature!"  she 
said  with  a  rapid  little  brushing  of  her 
fingers  against  his  cheek.  "Cheer  up,  old 
man;  you  're  always  snappish  till  you  're 
fed.  I  did  n't  have  an  idea  of  not  coming 
in  this  morning,  and  I  '11  stay  with  you  all 
day  if  you  like;  for  I  've  got  to  go  to-mor 
row,  Reggie.  Yes,  I  have,  straight!  My 


CLEM 

father  's  going  to  sail  next  week,  and  he 
reaches  New  York  day  after  to-morrow.  I 
can't  let  my  old  dad  go  off  for  God  knows 
how  long,  without  a  farewell  bat  with 
him." 

"And  then  you  '11  come  back  here  ?"  Reg 
gie  said,  with  a  certainty  of  inflection  which 
did  not  correspond  with  his  voice,  which 
was  wistful  in  the  extreme.  His  morose 
expression  deepened  as  Clem  shook  her 
head. 

"I  can't,  Reggie.  Yes,  your  mother 
asked  me  to.  But  I  can't." 

"You  can,  but  you  won't,"  he  growled. 
"And  if  I  thought  you  were  faking  that 
excuse  too — " 

Clem  held  her  father's  letter  before  his 
eyes,  and  Reggie  impenitently  read. 

"Oh,  you  play  straight  enough,"  he  con 
ceded  in  half  apology.  "And,  of  course, 
with  all  this,  you  've  got  to  go.  It  seems 
cursed  coincidental,  though.  But  you 
might  come  back." 

"I  can't,  Reggie,"  she  told  him. 

All  morning  long  she  sat  beside  him, 


CLEM 

both  of  them  deeply  conscious  that  some 
spell  was  broken.  Her  departure  had  come 
about  pertinently  and  naturally  and  inev 
itably,  as  she  had  desired.  Without  doubt, 
her  work  here  was  done.  Reggie  was  all 
but  well  in  body,  and  was  not  broken  in 
heart,  however  uncontrite  he  might  be; 
nor  more  than  passing  sad  in  mind,  thanks 
to  the  clear  absurdity  of  that  misapprehen 
sion  which  had  rained  ridicule  and  light 
laughter  upon  young  love.  And  now  and 
then,  because  talk  of  themselves  was  probed 
to  the  ultimate  depths,  they  spoke  of  Vir 
ginia,  Reggie  with  a  deep  and  growing 
curiosity  which  Clem  refused  to  gratify. 
And  it  was  to  Virginia  that  Clem  gave  up 
her  place  that  she  might  begin  her  prep 
arations  for  leaving. 

It  was  to  that  same  gentle  nurse  that  he 
turned  the  next  morning,  after  he  had 
waved  an  invalided  hand  to  the  Greshams 
and  Lorimer  and  Clem  as  they  went  off  to 
gether  for  a  last  ride.  That  was  Clem's 
own  manipulation,  and  she  smiled  in 
triumph  that  was  all  her  own  at  the  sight 


CLEM 

of  those  two  young  faces  bending  from 
Reggie's  window.  What  she  could  do  she 
had  done.  The  rest  lay  in  their  own  hands 
and  in  the  future. 

Through  some  other  subtle  machination 
of  which  she  had  been  supremely  uncon 
scious,  she  looked  ahead  down  a  long,  level 
road,  later  in  the  morning,  and  saw  no  one 
of  their  party,  save  only  Lorimer,  riding 
beside  her.  They  had  been  talking  and 
racing  by  turns,  for  how  long  she  did  not 
know.  At  all  events,  they  were  completely 
separated  from  their  quondam  companions. 

"What  does  it  matter?"  Lorimer  said. 
"Dell  and  Eaton  are  still  honeymooning. 
They  started  across  the  country  half  an 
hour  ago.  Come;  ahead  of  us  is  a  spot 
made  by  God  for  the  rest  of  the  weary.  We 
can  let  the  beasts  graze,  and  you  can  put  up 
your  hair  in  supreme  peace." 

A  little  further  on,  Lorimer  led  the  way, 
a  few  paces  aside  from  the  road,  and  dis 
mounted;  and  while  he  attempted  to  limit 
the  radius  of  grazing-ground,  Clem  stood, 
fastening  up  some  of  the  heavy  braids  of 


CLEM 

her  hair  which  had  become  loosened  in 
their  last  race.  Posed  so,  she  looked,  even 
in  her  tailored  habit,  more  a  goddess  than  a 
mortal  woman.  She  was  flawlessly  lovely ; 
and  Lorimer,  looking,  was  lost. 

Clem,  her  braids  secured  beneath  her 
riding-hat,  glanced  casually  up  into  his 
eyes,  and,  being  no  unskilled  seeress  in  the 
ways  of  men,  perceived  that  an  unexpected 
and  yet  a  strangely  unsurprising  crisis  was 
impending  heavily.  Her  brain  traveled  a 
lightning  path  back  over  the  weeks,  and  she 
saw  precisely  the  steps  which  had  led  them 
both  to  this  precipitate  moment.  She  had 
not  foreseen  it ;  she  had  never  thought  of  it 
as  possible;  but  she  realized  now  that  the 
only  reason  for  her  lack  of  taking  thought 
for  the  morrow  in  this  instance  was  her 
unvoiced  conviction  that  Drake  Lorimer 
was  triple-guarded  against  all  her  powers. 
Otherwise  she  must  have  interpreted  many 
of  his  words  and  deeds  just  as  the  present 
moment  was  interpreting  them.  • 

"I  wish  you  'd  look  at  Soubrette's  left 
forefoot,"  she  remarked  coolly,  as  she 

18 


CLEM 

thrust  one  of  her  two  remaining  hairpins 
into  place.  "I  think  she  picked  up  a  stone 
back  yonder." 

Lorimer  smiled  slightly,  whereby  Clem 
perceived  that  he  had  perceived  her  percep 
tion  of  a  moment  back.  She  knew  then 
that  the  situation  was  not  to  be  saved  by 
palpable  evasions,  and  yet  she  tried  to 
break  the  spell  once  again. 

"Hurry,  please,"  she  said,  pushing  the 
last  pin  emphatically  into  place.  "I  've  got 
to  get  back  to  Reggie." 

"Reggie  is  eliminated  from  this,"  Lor 
imer  said.  "Oh,  you  wonderful  woman! 
Am  I  blind  that  I  have  not  seen ;  deaf  that 
I  have  not  heard,  from  his  own  lips,  his 
ignorant  tale  of  what  you  have  done  for 
him!  If  it  were  possible  for  me  to  love 
you  more,  he  gave  me  the  cause,  last  night, 
in  his  rambling,  hurt  talk." 

The  girl  frowned  a  little.  "All  this  is 
past  history/'  she  said.  "It  's  been  talked 
over  too  much,  anyway.  It  's  been  played 
out  under  arc-lights.  At  least  we  can  keep 

[afa] 


CLEM 

our  tongues  still  about  it.  What  sort  do 
you  take  me  for—" 

"For  the  sort  of  woman,  and  that  sort 
only,  who  could  say  to  her  boy-lover  what 
you  said  to  yours !"  Lorimer  retorted  vehe 
mently.  "He  said  it  all  over  to  me  last 
night,  poor  chap;  said  it  dully;  he  did  not 
know  a  tenth  of  what  you  meant.  But  let 
me  tell  you,  for  your  glory,  that  you  ac 
complished  the  work  you  set  yourself  to 
do ;  you  left  him  his  Ideal  unsmirched;  you 
left  him  his  belief  in  his  Perfect  Woman 
still  alive— all  that  with  the  wisdom  of  a 
first  experience.  He  does  n't  know,  and 
may  not,  for  another  score  of  years,  what 
you  have  done  for  him  in  this  crucial  time 
of  his  life;  and  his  mother  only  faintly 
knows.  But  I  know,  Clem." 

She  flushed  a  little,  and  her  eyes  met  his 
for  a  second. 

"You  get  under  my  guard  when  you 
talk  that  way  of  Reggie,"  she  murmured. 
"You  put  it  a  little  different— I  hope  I  have 
done  all  that;  all  I  wanted  to  do  was  to 

[263] 


CLEM 

leave  him  for  some  other  girl — the  right 
girl — just  as  sweet  and  clean  and  whole 
some — " 

She  broke  off  abruptly,  and  Lorimer 
stooped  and  mechanically  picked  up  her 
horse's  forefoot.  As  he  raised  his  head, 
she  flung  him  one  of  her  old,  brilliant 
smiles. 

"So,  if  you  feel  satisfied  about  Reggie, 
it  's  all  right.  I  reckon  that  stone  was  a 
mistake,  my  mentioning  it.  Come,  let  's 
go  back.  Oh,  why  need  it  go  any  fur 
ther—" 

Lorimer  interrupted  her  sternly.  "What 
do  you  mean  ?  That  I  have  not  said  it  all, 
in  saying  that  I  love  you  ?  Don't  you  know 
that  means  all  things ;  that  I  have  no  wish 
on  earth  but  to  make  you  my  wife — " 

Clem  sat  down  against  the  grassy 
mound  against  which  she  had  been  half 
kneeling.  She  dropped  her  chin  into  her 
hand,  and  she  motioned  him  freely  to  the 
place  beside  her. 

"There  's  no  helping  it  now,"  she  said. 
"We  might  as  well  have  it  out,  here  and 


CLEM 

forever.  Sit  down  and  let  's  be  as  com 
fortable  as  we  can,  because — " 

But  Lorimer  stood  before  her,  speaking 
with  rigid  self-control. 

"Don't  say  w*hat  you  were  going  to  say 
now — yet.  Because  you  are  going  to  dis 
miss  it  all  with  a  word.  This  thing  means 
too  much — it  deserves  more  than  a  dis 
missing  word.  It  began  the  first  night  I 
looked  into  your  face.  I  know  that  now. 
It  grew  to  gigantic  height  that  night  you 
went  away  only  to  come  back,  three  hours 
later." 

Clem  flushed  again.  "Ever  since  I  Ve 
been  back,  I  've  wanted  to  say  something  to 
you  about  that  talk  of  ours,  and  I  could 
never  find  the  words.  I  could  n't  take  it 
back,  because  I  believe  in  my  soul  that 
everything  I  said  is  true.  But  I  've  been 
mighty  sorry  lots  of  times  since  that  I  said 
all  I  did.  It  was  n't  generous;  there  was 
no  sense  in  it,  no  use  in  it,  no  good  done  by 
it.  I  wish  I  had  n't." 

"I  've  never  wanted  you  to  take  back  one 
word,"  Lorimer  replied  steadily.  "Nor 


CLEM 

have  I  wished  that  you  had  left  anything 
unsaid.  You  made  the  petty  things  of 
life  shrink  into  nothingness;  you  made 
only  the  big  things  in  it  seem  worth  while. 
You  have  shamed  us  all— there  have  been 
many  times  when  I  could  have  kissed  your 
garment's  hem  for  the  outgiving  virtue 
of  it.  I  think  we  have  all  thanked  the 
gods  for  this  accidental  chance  which 
brought  you  back  here,  to  give  us  our 
chance — " 

Clem  put  out  her  hand  in  mute  protest. 

"That  's  all  buried  and  done  for,"  she 
said.  "No  good  ever  came  of  raking  up 
old  scores." 

"As  for  this  other  thing,"  she  added, 
after  a  pause.  "I  'm  sorry,  but  it  's  not 
possible.  Oh,  it  's  not  possible!  You  've 
got  sense  enough  to  see  straight;  why  do 
you  try  to  ride  through  a  mountain ;  to  beat 
your  head  against  a  wall  that  won't  be  bat 
tered  down?" 

"I  must  know  all  this  beyond  all  doubt," 
Lorimer  insisted.  His  face  had  paled 
slightly,  but  his  eyes  were  gleaming.  "You 


CLEM 

must  tell  me  why —  Ah,  let  us  talk  face  to 
face  in  this.  You  are  too  big  to  turn  away, 
and  refuse  to  face  any  truth;  and  this  is 
Truth,  Clem." 

Clem  struck  with  her  whip  the  long,  dry 
grass  at  her  feet. 

"Both  of  us  are  going  to  get  hurt  if  we 
don't  call  it  all  off — now!— and  shake 
hands.  Come !" 

She  held  out  her  hand  with  a  glance 
which  was  brightly  beseeching.  Lorimer 
shook  his  head. 

"I  promise  you  that  I  will  shake  hands 
with  you  at  last,  if  it  must  be  only  that,"  he 
said.  "But  not  now — " 

"It  must  all  come  to  the  same  thing,"  she 
interrupted.  "This  way  we  both  accept  it. 
The  other  way — we  handle  live  coals  and 
burn  our  hands,  and  perhaps  can't  shake 
hands  because  of  the  sting  and  smart — " 

"Let  us  pick  up  the  burning  coals,"  Lor 
imer  pressed.  "You  can't  expect  me  to 
take  my  dismissal  with  merely  a  friendly 
hand-clasp,  after  this." 

"After  all,  it  's  soon  said,"   Clem  re- 


CLEM 

marked.  "Sit  down,  do ;  let  's  be  comfort 
able.  You  're  keen  enough  to  know  that 
the  thing  which  drew  you  toward  me  for 
awhile  back  yonder  was  n't  congeniality, 
but  our  awful  unlikeness.  I  've  been 
brought  up  with  men,  you  know — that  's 
enough  to  account  for  my  unlikeness  to 
most  of  the  women  you  've  known ;  and  by 
the  same  token  it  accounts  for  your  being 
a  new  sort  to  me.  I  've  lived  with  men, 
you  know — " 

Lorimer's  lips  parted,  even  as  they  whit 
ened  slightly.  But  Clem  forestalled  him. 

"Here  's  my  idea !"  she  said  quickly.  She 
picked  up  his  hand  and  laid  it,  palm  down, 
along  her  own.  She  followed  its  fine  out 
line  with  her  finger  while  she  talked : 

"Here  's  my  idea!  It  fascinated  me, 
this  hand  of  yours,  the  first  night  I  met 
you,  when  I  read  your  hand  and  Jack's  to 
gether.  The  difference  there  is  in  them ! 
Jack  's  a  gentleman — I  've  known  a  lot  of 
men  who  were  gentlemen  of  sorts — but  I 
never  in  my  life  met  any  man  but  you  who 
would  n't  be  capable  of  forgetting,  some- 


CLEM 

times,  that  he  was  a  gentleman,  in  remem 
bering  that  he  was  a  man!  You  'd  never 
forget  it;  you  could  n't!  If  you  were  ever 
face  to  face  with  Life,  with  only  these  hands 
of  yours  between  you  and  it  and  Death, 
you  'd  die  like  a  gentleman,  but  you  'd  die. 

"I  've  been  reading  a  lot  of  your  books 
this  last  month.  I  've  been  reading  up  on 
your  women,  your  men;  and  I  've  learned 
more  about  you,  there,  than  you  'd  believe 
was  there.  I  know  now,  the  sort  of  men 
and  women  you  stand  for ;  the  sort  of  life 
and  living  you  admire.  It  's  hard  to  say 
any  of  this  without  saying  things  that  I 
don't  mean.  But  the  fact  is,  that  both  you 
and  I  are  limited,  in  some  ways,  forever; 
and  what  each  of  us  has  lacked,  we  Ve  liked 
in  the  other.  But  for  us  to  try  to  get  past 
those  limitations — it  would  be  hell;  you 
take  my  word  for  that.  You  know  it,  with 
out  words !" 

She  glanced  at  him  quickly,  but  he  was 
looking  straight  ahead  of  him,  with  a  face 
so  set  that  a  weary  shadow  crept  into  her 
eyes. 


CLEM 

"Well,  that 's  the  whole  of  it,"  she  added 
again,  in  the  pause  which  Lorimer  did  not 
break,  although  she  waited  for  him  hope 
fully.  "All  of  us  have  slumbering  traits 
that  reach  out  after,  the  same  ones,  devel 
oped  in  others—"  She  broke  off  abruptly. 
"It  's  hard  to  talk  sometimes,  is  n't  it? 
Words  are  nothing  but  thick  veils  that  you 
draw  down  over  what  you  are  really  think 
ing.  I  'm  afraid  I  've  made  a  bad  botch  of 
it  all-" 

"You  've  made  yourself  painstakingly 
clear,"  Lorimer  said,  between  dry  lips. 
"Yes,  I  insisted;  you  had  to  make  your 
stand.  No,  I  don't  blame  you  for  anything 
you  have  said,  now  or  at  any  time.  Know 
that  always.  You  are  not  to  blame  because 
my  blood  is  not  red  enough  to  call  to  you, 
and  my  hands  are  not  brawny  enough  to 
conquer  you.  You  are  quite  right ;  I  should 
not  grapple  frantically  with  life  and  death; 
I  should  realize  too  keenly  the  weary  futil 
ity  of  fighting  against  impossible  odds." 

He  sprang  to  his  feet  and  held  out  his 
hand  to  her. 

[270] 


CLEM 

"Well,  after  all  this  carrying  of  coals, 
let  us  shake  hands;  the  smart  of  the  burn 
does  not  preclude  the  keeping  of  that 
promise." 

She  put  out  her  hand  with  averted  eyes, 
and  he  held  it  for  a  moment  without  speak 
ing. 

"I  am  going  to  say  good-by,  here,  now," 
he  said  at  last.  "You  are  leaving  us  to 
night  !  I  shall  take  you  back  to  the  house, 
and  if  you  don't  see  me  again,  you  will 
know  by  new  proof  that  I  am  not  a  man 
who  thinks  it  worth  while  to  fight  shadows 
or  stone  walls." 

He  paused,  but  he  did  not  release  her 
hand,  and  he  stood  looking  down  upon  her 
fair  head  and  her  averted  face. 

"In  those  first  days,"  he  said  abruptly, 
"some  one  we  both  know  pictured  you  in 
phrases  that  I  would  give  most  things  to 
call  mine,  phrases  that  I  could  not  have 
made  then  of  you,  and  yet  they  have  stood 
always  for  you  in  my  heart.  And  if  it  is 
worth  while  to  have  made  them,  it  is  worth 
much  to  be  the  subject  of  them :  'She  looked 


CLEM 

the  primitive  Woman.  .  .  .  She  might 
have  been  the  primeval  Woman,  walking 
untrodden  sands,  pressing  the  springing 
earth  when  the  world  was  young.  .  .  .  She 
was  so  nobly  unashamed  and  so  purely 
human.  .  .  .  The  very  atoms  of  her  might 
have  been  scooped  up  from  virgin  earth, 
from  sea-born  clay  just  washed  to  shore. 
.  .  .  And  a  Rodin  hand  might  have  mod 
eled  her!'" 

He  said  it  reverently,  slowly. 

He  bent  low  at  last  to  look  into  her  face. 
"Clem !"  he  said. 

She  looked  up  at  him  blindly.  He  could 
not  read  her  face — the  strange  light  on  it. 

"Did  Jack  say  that?  Then?— That  far 
back?"  she  stammered. 

Lorimer  drew  back  a  little.  "Jack? 
Yes,  it  was  Jack ;  though  I  did  n't  say  so." 

He  was  surveying  her  with  unflinching 
keenness.  Suddenly  he  caught  up  both  her 
hands  and  drew  her  to  her  feet,  and  for  a 
moment  they  looked  on  each  other,  in  be 
wildered  silence.  Then  Lorimer  released 
her,  and  stepped  back  with  a  little  smile 
[272] 


CLEM 

about  his  lips  that  was  like  a  groan  re 
pressed. 

"I  think,"  he  said  slowly,  "that  we  have 
both  been  reasoning  from  false  premises, 
in  this  talk  of  ours.  And,  on  each  side, 
most  innocently." 

For  another  moment  he  stared  down  into 
her  face,  and  then  he  lifted  her  hands,  and 
held  them  close  against  his  breast,  looking 
at  her  with  all  of  the  longing  and  none  of 
the  joy  of  love. 

"You  will  be  very  happy,"  he  said  in  a 
strained,  keen  voice.  "Very  happy.  You 
are  made  for  joy,  and  you  will  live  it ;  and 
if  I  may  be  able  ever  to  further  it  in  any 
way — " 

He  raised  his  eyes,  and  looked  straight 
above  Clem's  head,  into  Lowe's  face ;  Lowe, 
who,  in  the  course  of  a  solitary  stroll,  had 
chanced  upon  this  woodland  scene.  For  a 
moment  the  eyes  of  the  two  men  met  in  a 
look  which  was  unmistakable  to  each  of 
them,  and  Lorimer,  if  he  had  never  felt  it 
before,  knew  then  the  primal  call  to  battle. 

And  then  heredity  and  environment  and, 


CLEM 

perhaps,  the  sense  of  the  weary  futility  of 
struggle  fell  upon  that  primal  call  and 
crushed  it.  He  laid  her  hands  gently  down, 
and  spoke  over  her  shoulder  to  Lowe,  in  a 
voice  that  almost  achieved  his  customary 
level  tone. 

"You  're  walking,  Jack  ?  Then  take  my 
horse,  will  you,  when  Miss  Merrit  is  ready 
to  go  back,  and  see  her  safely  home?" 

Clem,  turning  quickly,  protesting  fiercely, 
was  hushed  into  dumbness  by  the  vivid  fire 
in  Lowe's  eyes  as  he  came  toward  her. 
They  stood  in  silence  until  all  sound  of 
footsteps  had  died  away,  and  then,  at  a 
quick  move  of  Lowe  toward  her,  Clem 
shrank  back  against  a  tree  trunk,  holding 
him  off  with  a  raised  hand.  She  broke  into 
hurried  words. 

"I  Ve  just  heard  of — the  bully  thing  you 
did  for  me,  Jack,  down  at  the  beach,  weeks 
ago — that  stunt  of  yours  in  words,  Jack !" 
She  was  laughing  a  little,  trying,  so,  to 
hide  the  great  emotion  which  surged 
through  her.  "I  have  n't  the  nerve  to 
quote  it — all  that  virgin  earth  and  sea-born 


CLEM 

clay  business — but  you  could  n't  have  added 
another  word  to  what  you  said !" 

Lowe's  fixed  gaze  and  impassive  face 
were  relieved  only  by  the  flicker  of  his  light 
lashes,  and,  at  last,  by  a  shadowy  smile. 

"I  could  have  added  nothing — there !"  he 
conceded.  "But  all  was  not  said  in  that 
long  past  moment,  Clem." 

He  was  standing  before  her,  his  hands 
clasped  behind  him,  yet  as  close  to  her  as  if 
he  held  her  in  his  arms. 

"All  these  two  years  of  meetings  and  of 
absences  have  been  bringing  us  both  to  this 
relentless  moment.  You  know  that.  We 
belong  to  each  other,  and  this  is  our  hour. 
Nothing,  nobody,  counts  in  it,  save  only 
you  and  me.  You  know  that." 

Her  face  had  paled,  but  in  her  eyes  no 
doubts  lingered.  He  saw  there  the  answer 
to  the  cry,  and  he  did  not  need  to  hear  her 
solemnly  uttered  words. 

"Yes,  I  know  that,"  she  said. 

THE  END 


University  of  California  Library 
Los  Angeles 

This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


/  €  J  <£L  £. 


A    000  111  156    6 


